While I was for the first time in 1988 imagining the creation of the "Cuvée d'Antan", I was sure that this would be a red wine to be aged in wooden barrels.  I was naturally inspired by the reference area, Bordeaux, and chose the "Barrique" of a capacity of 225 litres.

 

Very quickly, it seemed to me that the "barrique" was not well adapted to the red wines of Provence. The tannins of our wines are naturally already very mature and therefore need less wood and oxygene then those offered by the "barriques".

In 1997, after several years of tasting and analysis, this intuition becomes a certenty. The "Cuvée d'Antan" needs a bigger barrel in order to use a less important surface between the wine and the wood.  But which capacity to choose? The answer will be given to me by reading an old encyclopedia of Provence: 600 litres, the capacity of wine casks used by the wine makers of Provence until the 18th century. In Provence, a wine cask is called "bouto". So the "boute" is born!!!

In 1997, I replaced 30 % of the "barriques" by "boutes". One year later, the results of the tastings are even more conclusive then what I could have imagined: the wine aged in "boutes" is more balanced, more full, it's wooden touch is more harmonious, its tannins finer, its typicity more marked. The proportion of "boutes" was of 65 % in the year 2000, and finally achieved the 100 % in 2001.

Jérôme Paquette
Oenologue