Château Canon 1er Grand Cru Classé

Exposure South / South-West
Grape varieties 75 % Merlot, 25 % Cabernet Franc
Density of plantation 5 500 plants per hectare
Average age of the vines 25 years
Vineyard management Double guyot pruning – Manual leaf thinning – Crop thinning before colour change – An
environmentally – friendly spray program.
GROWING SEASON
The 2004 spring, which was quite cold and dry, had two consequences: the first was a relatively late flowering, which took
place in June in excellent weather conditions, keeping optimism high after a successful bud-break; then, early drought
conditions for an oceanic climate during spring months which are generally humid. This explains the high degree of
polyphenols in the 2004 vintage. Moderately hot weather during July easily forced the vine to halt vegetation growth at the
end of July just before the colour change. Though August was cool and intermittently rainy, vegetation growth did not take
off again. Quite hot and dry weather during September was decisive, enabling a slow and complete ripening of the Merlot and
also the Cabernets Franc. It was clear that in order to get the very best out of this very large crop, it was necessary to reduce
the yield by appropriate crop thinning. The red wines, whether coming from Merlot or Cabernet plots, have a very deep
colour, fruit which is both fresh and ripe, and impressive tannins.
HARVEST
Since the 2002 vintage, the introduction of a new harvest reception system has enabled us to take even greater care of the
selection and handling of the grape bunches.
After a painstaking selection in the vines, the best bunches are taken in small-sized crates to the vat cellar entrance. These are
then carefully tipped on to a sorting table, where a team of 6 to 8 people removes any berries that are of lesser quality. After a
gentle de-stemming, the berries are then sorted by 10 people who discard any berries which have not reached perfect ripeness.
The crop is then placed in small 3 hectoliter stainless steel containers and emptied into the new stainless steel fermentation
vats by gravity. Canon thereby avoids any aggressive handling of the crop through pumps and pipes.
Merlot: from September 28th to September 29th (the young vines) - from September 30th to October 7th
Cabernet Franc: Monday and Tuesday October 11th and 12th
VINIFICATION
· Alcoholic fermentation during 10 days
· Maceration for 15 days in temperature-controlled oak vats with three daily pump-overs of half or the whole of the volume
of the vat
· Malo-lactic fermentation in stainless steel vats and in barrels
· Ageing in barrels, 65 % of which are brand new, racking through the small bunghole at the end of the barrel every three
months, fining with fresh egg whites and no filtering
BLENDING
Château Canon Clos Canon
75 % Merlot 100 % Merlot
25 % Cabernet Franc