Garagistes

Garage wines are wines that are produced with the highest quality standards from very small wineries. Typically, garage wines are characterized by very low yields per hectare, maximum ripeness of the grapes, strong concentration of the must and extreme use of new oak barrels. The wines follow this rather an international style as the goal of the best possible typicality and expression of terroir. Most of the Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot are processed.

Garage wines are currently cult in the world of wine connoisseurs and gourmets. Due to the low production volumes they come almost never in normal trading. They can be found on the wine lists of gourmet restaurants. At auction, they are often sold for 1000 euros per bottle or even more. Celebrities and the kingdoms of this world have established the trend in the 90s. They made themselves small wineries often only 2 acres and were inspired by ambition, there to produce award-winning wines. In no time the bottles objects of desire for well-heeled collectors and speculators have become.

The Napa Valley in California and the Bordeaux region in France are arguing about who has produced the first garage wines. The dispute also includes the strange naming. From the garage shops, so those small, highly creative workshops from those in the 70s and 80s, among other things, the software giant Microsoft and Intel have emerged that Californians are derived from the name. In France, more thought in the vin de garage to the fact that the annual production of micro -chateaux, such as the small wineries also mean would loose fit with a few hundred or thousand bottles in a garage.

Famous French Garage Wines are:

• Le Pin ( Pomerol )
• Château Valandraud ( Saint- Émilion )
• La Mondotte (→ Château Canon -La Gaffelière, Saint- Émilion )
• Marojallia ( Margaux )

Similarly, rare and expensive, but no garage wines are produced in very small quantities "micro- cuvées " much larger goods, such as

• Grand Cru wines of Burgundy
• Single vineyard wines of Côte Rôtie
• " Vieilles Vignes " ( old vines selections ) how often in Châteauneuf -du -Pape

• Quality ( wine)