My week in Burgundy was an exercise in vintage variations. Barrel rooms are quite full from a good crop in 2022. Although as one producer said, it’s actually only an average crop, but it feels large because of the tiny crops in 2021 and 2020. Some producers have none to show because they have sold out. Directly or indirectly these lurches in quantity and quality are the result of climate change.

“Climate change is a good thing for Pinot Noir. It’s not bad for Chardonnay, but may be in the future,” says Jérôme Flous at Faiveley. “Pinot used to be not ripe but now we have good ripeness in every vintage. Twenty years ago we had 2 good vintages in 10, now we have 8 good vintages in 10. 2020 was hot, but we had the experience from 2003. 2021 is an old school vintage. 2022 is a very balanced vintage, very good if not great and not too concentrated.”

The key to understanding the wildly contrasting 2021 and 2020 vintages are the very different effects of different means of reducing yields. “We lost 75% of the crop in 2021 and 50% in 2020,” says Alexandre Abel at Domaine Ponsot. The main problem in 2021 was frost and hail. The word producers most often use to describe the vintage is ‘disastrous.’ “But even if the growing season was wet in 2021, the quantity was so low that the vines could ripen the fruit if you took the risk of delaying the harvest. In 2020 there were 5 months without rain, and here the concentration comes from the small berries.” In Beaune, the situation was reversed. “We made more wine in 2021 than 2020 because we escaped the frost in 2021, and Beaune really suffered from the drought in 2020,” says David Croix at Domaine des Croix.

2021 may be a throwback to lighter colored wine with more of a cool climate impression, certainly it is more elegant and a great contrast with the massive 2020, but if it is a throwback it is a modernized version, because the structure is so fine and balanced by the fruits. Unlike other throwback vintages where there has usually been a deficiency such as dilution or herbaceousness, this offers a complete impression. It is really unusual in giving full force expression to Pinot Noir, but being ready to drink more or less on release. It may not age as long as a classic great vintage, but you can get the full experience with immediate gratification.

Erratic yields are crucial to understanding 2021. The Morey St Denis Alouettes premier cru at Domaine Ponsot seems denser and richer than the grand cru Chapelle Chambertin, because Chapelle was the least hit, with only (!) 40% loss, while Alouettes was the most hit. So yields around 8 hl/ha in Alouettes give it greater concentration and ripeness than the Grand Cru. I might well have reversed the two wines in a blind tasting.

When 2020 is good, it is very very good, but when it is bad it is horrid. I’ve commented before on the existence of some massive wines that give an impression more of Châteauneuf du Pape than Burgundy (winespecific.com/2023/06/15/sea-change-in-burgundy-send-the-lifeboats/). Most wines do not go anywhere near this extreme, but it was certainly necessary to be cautious. At Domaine Ponsot, to avoid excessive extraction, reds were pressed before fermentation completed, at around 90%, and then fermentation for the last 10% was completed in stainless steel. To be a great producer in Burgundy these days you have to be prepared to cope with climatic extremes: drought and heat at one extreme, frost, hail, and rain at the other. What other plagues might come next?

“With global warming we have new diseases, the vines suffer more from heat, in 2021 there were crazy temperature variations. We may need to change the cultivars and the root stock. We used to grow low to capture heat from the soil, now we may want to get away from the soil,” says Frédéric Drouhin. So with vineyards performing differently in these new conditions, could it be necessary to change the classification? Oh no! “Global warming will not change the classification, the geology is more important than the climate,” Frédéric says.

Some top results for red 2021

Joseph Drouhin, Chambolle Musigny, Les Amoureuses

Increased density to the nose compared to the Chambolle Musigny premier cru blend. Follows to the palate, wonderfully elegant, round, touch of extra ripeness showing as a viscous sheen. Lovely balance, this has it all, with the finesse of a grand cru. Can start already because the tannins are so supple. 93. Drink –2023.

Henri Gouges, Nuits St. Georges, Les Chaignots

More weight than the village wine, rounder and more aromatic, tending to black cherries, the aromatics carrying through to the finish. Tannins are supple with structure evident more by inference than directly. It is distinctly softer than Les Porrets. 91. Drink –2036

Joliet Père et Fils, Fixin, Clos des Perrières

Fresher impression than 2020 or 2022, with livelier acidity. Tannins moving towards chocolaty although overall lighter than the flanking vintages. Although the impression is relatively fresh, that sense of richness is still there in background. This vintage used 30% whole bunches and had 18 months élevage. 90 Drink –2030

Domaine des Croix, Beaune, Les Bressandes

A slightly sterner more structured impression to the nose compared to the clay-based premier crus. The structure is evident on the palate even though it is basically behind the savory red fruits. The savory character turns quite saline on the finish. Tannins are silky and well in the background. 90 Drink -2033

Domaine Ponsot, Morey St. Denis, Les Alouettes    

With yields of 8 hl/ha and only 4 barrels produced, this wine has achieved a concentration greater than the Chapelle Chambertin of the vintage. Surprising concentration and richness, rounder and deeper. The tannins are taut but the palate stays fresh and approachable.   92. Drink -2032

Two wines tasted at a bistro in Vienne made me wonder if everything is changing in Burgundy. The first was the Chablis Sereine from La Chablisienne. This is a well-made wine in the tradition of cheap and cheerful. It is a pleasant enough white wine, but it’s hard to see the typicity of Chablis. No question about authenticity of source here, and I admire the skill in winemaking, but if this is what they have to do these days to sell generic Chablis, I rather regret the change.

The second wine was a communal Burgundy from the 2020 vintage in Chorey-les-Beaune. If I had this in a blind tasting, I would have placed it well south of Burgundy, and I doubt if I would have identified it as Pinot Noir.  It has an inky purple color, massive extraction, black fruit aromatics, 14.5% alcohol, and southern flavors  If this is the effect of global warming, it’s the end for Burgundy.

I’ve had this wine (and several others, including premier crus, from the same producer) in several earlier vintages, including tastings at the producer. My earlier tasting notes on the communal wine show consistency: a light, pleasant wine, with red fruit character and good acidity, usually just a little on the thin side. For obvious reasons, I do not want to identify the producer, but tastings notes follow.

The latest vintage shows no connection with the earlier tastings. Either this wine has changed beyond all recognition, or it’s really something else. Rather belatedly, it occurred to me to wonder if the wine might in fact be a fake. I would prefer it to be a fake, because that would mean I can continue to drink Burgundy. But why would you fake Chorey-les-Beaune?

Tasting Notes

2020

Inky purple color. Spicy for AOP and producer. Smooth almost nutty palate at first, but increasingly rustic with time in glass. Far more extract than you would ever expect for the AOP or for Pinot Noir. Good acidity and a little chocolaty on finish until it turns rustic. Is the high alcohol an indication of a change in style. Massively over extracted; feels more like Cabernet Sauvignon or some southern variety grown in hot conditions.

2008

A whiff of quite well rounded fruits on the nose. Slightly austere impression with mid density fruits on the palate showing a slight lack of generosity, reflecting the vintage. Light but nice enough for the year.   Tasted 2010.

2004

Red fruits showing a little tarry on the nose. Slightly stern on the palate, a little dry and tarry on the finish, but a decent result for the year. Tasted 2010.

Very much in the light fruity style of the house, with quite a forward buttery nose showing some stern notes from new oak. Well rounded light red fruits without much stuffing show on the palate, making this a nice wine for the immediate future, but without pretensions to longevity. Tasted 2007.

1988

Developed tertiary aromas on the nose – more directly tertiary than sous bois. But nice on the palate, still good fruit concentration showing, hardening up a little in the style of the vintage. Surviving now perhaps rather than aging.  Tasted 2010.

With a price on release of €30,000 a bottle since 2015 (up from €5,000 per bottle for the first vintage in 2006), Liber Pater is the most expensive wine in the world. So opportunities for a vertical tasting are not exactly common…

Loïc Pasquet started his project when he bought a tiny estate in Landiras in the Graves in 2005 and set out to produce a wine from pre-phylloxera varieties. The vineyard was partly planted with old vines on their own roots, and he slowly converted it to entirely ungrafted vines. By 2015, the wine was made exclusively from ungrafted vines. [I previously described a visit to the vineyard].

The major grape is Petite-Vidure, which is an old name for Cabernet Sauvignon. There are small quantities of Petit Verdot and Malbec, and around 2% of the really rare varieties: Tarnay-Coulant (also known as Mancin); Sainte-Macaire (formerly planted in marshes of the Garonne, but rather unproductive); Castets (an old variety of the Right Bank). “We didn’t have Merlot on the left bank before phylloxera,” Loïc says.

“To make good wine you need maturity, not sur-maturity.” Loïc distinguishes between freshness and acidity: “acidity is not freshness.” “When you plant on own roots, everything matures together. We harvest the vineyard in two days, if the vines were on rootstocks it would be two weeks.”

Overall there have been 9 vintages in the past 15 years. Recently there was no release in 2012-2014 and 2017. Before 2015 the vineyard had some grafted vines, 20% 2006-2009, 10% 2010-2014. Since 2015 it has been 100% ungrafted. “The taste changed…” Loïc says. Since 2015 the blend has been constant, with about 70% Cabernet Sauvignon.

Vinification used small barrels before 2015, when everything switched entirely to amphora. “With grafted wines the tannins are not so fine, so you need the oak to smooth them out. In Bordeaux today we make wine like soup.” Loïc says scathingly of modern winemaking.

Overall Liber Pater conveys a strong sense of freshness against a background of red/black fruits (less focused on black than Bordeaux today). It is not at all driven by the usual black fruit aromatics such as blackcurrants. I am not at all sure you would recognize it as Bordeaux in a blind tasting.

Liber Pater is made in very small quantities, only around 500 bottles. Another wine, Denarius, is made in slightly larger amounts, around 2,000 bottles. (The price is around €1000.) Loïc does not want to call it a second wine. “It comes from a separate part of the vineyard,” he says. I think it is possible that Denarius may actually come closer to Loïc’s intention to reproduce the taste of 19^th century Bordeaux.

Tasting notes from a visit Loïc made to New York at the end of April 2023.

Liber Pater 2007

Nose is relatively fresh but not very aromatic (at least not the usual black fruit aromatics of modern Bordeaux). Strong sense of freshness, but without any trace of herbaceousness, is appealing. Perhaps this is what Loïc means when he says “acidity is not freshness.” Not at all like a modern vintage or for that matter one of the sixties of seventies. The palate is fine and silky and smooth, and any tannins are well in the background. This feels like a relatively cool climate production. In terms of areas, the sense of finesse relates better to St. Julien or Margaux than to Pessac-Léognan or Graves. As the wine ages, it merges more towards a conventional view of Bordeaux but is quite distinctive. I suspect this is much finer than the 19th century Bordeaux Loïc is trying to emulate (which would have been aged in oak, albeit not new).     91 Drink now-2031.

Liber Pater 2010

Nose is quite restrained by comparison with modern Bordeaux, but is more powerful and savory than 2007. A touch more savory on the palate than predicted from the nose, and quite a herbal impression. The palate is equally as fresh as 2007. Savory impressions accentuate in the glass and take this even farther away from impressions of modern Bordeaux. Structure is very fine but well in background. Powerful impressions of Cabernet Sauvignon show retronasally with some hints of minty herbs.     92 Drink now-2035.

Liber Pater 2011

Compared to 2010 there is a change here to a more fruit-driven impression, with a spectrum between red and black fruits. Palate retains a touch of tannic bitterness; normally you would put this down as due to oak influence. This seems more evidently driven by Cabernet Sauvignon as it develops in the glass. The savory elements come out more evidently as minty than in 2010. The sense of structure is enhanced, and this does not seem as fine on the palate as 2010; the flavor spectrum is broader. That faintly minty character comes out on the aftertaste with an almost soapy density.     91 Drink now-2034.

Liber Pater 2018

This shows a completely different flavor spectrum from the older vintages of 2007-2011: is this due to youth? or to the changes in plantings or élevage? There are still some savory and quasi-minty notes on the palate, but they are offset against nutty impressions. Rounder on the palate than older vintages but still has that hallmark freshness. The sense of freshness, together with some savory acidity in the background, takes over from the fruits as the wine develops in the glass. The savory impressions reflect dried herbs, but are hard to pin down. Impressions of malic acid give the palate a slightly disjointed character (needs time to meld together?) This is closer to Denarius in style than the older vintages, so may reflect youthfulness. Similarly there is an impression that this needs time to smooth out. It is less forceful than Denarius (more elegant?) but the flavor spectrum is similar.     90 Drink 2026-2036.

Denarius 2019

This has calmed down in the past year. The nose is intensely savory driven, similar to, but more forceful than, Liber Pater itself. It is also more assertive on the palate, at least at this stage, than Liber Pater, with a really strong herbal character (dried herbs not fresh). A nuttiness develops on the back palate that is reminiscent of an affinity for oak, but there is a piercing clarity (as opposed to fruit purity) compared to modern Bordeaux. A strong malic impression enhances the overall savory character. The palate is less finely structured than Liber Pater, and in this regard I suspect this is closer to the 19th century Bordeaux Loïc is trying to emulate.   12.5%   92 Drink 2025-2032.

“In the crisis of 1928, René Médeville had difficulty in selling the wine so he just kept it instead of selling it at a low price. Eventually he couldn’t bottle it until after the second world war,” Xavier Gonet says, as he explains the origins of Château Gilette’s unique production of Sauternes. “If you find an old bottle of Gilette – before the 1930s – it will have been made ‘the normal way,’ Xavier adds. His wife Julie, who is René’s granddaughter, took over Château Gilette in 2004 from her father, Christian.

“Gilette is a special type of wine,” Xavier says, “it never sees any oak. “We harvest by picking only botrytized berries – we wait a lot and usually I’m one of the last to pick. We try to pick late and have as few tries as possible”. After fermentation in stainless steel, the wine goes into 12 small concrete tanks for 18-20 years. It’s completely racked off to fill the tank—there are no lees. “Most people make a link between oxidation and aging, but the vats are completely filled so there is no oxidation. What happens in the vat is just like the difference between keeping wine in a magnum or bottle—the big vats are fruitier. When we bottle, we bottle the complete vintage.”

There used to be different levels of Gilette — dry, demi-sec, demi-doux, doux, and crême de tête. G was the dry wine but made in only three vintages, 1954, 1956, 1958. (This gave the idea to Bernard Lur Saluces to produce the dry Ygrec at Château d’Yquem.) The last vintage of the other cuvées was 1962. “Because we now produce only Crême de Tête, we don’t produce every year. It’s usually made 5 years each decade. At 10 hl/ha we get 6,000 bottles. Basically we try to sell  up to 3,000 bottles per year. Some years we don’t pick at all.”

“What you get with Gilette is the intensity of old vines, the volume, but the freshness of aromas. There is absolutely no oak in any of our Sauternes, Oak is not our style. (We think that) with oak you lose a little bit the purity and freshness in the wine. It begins a second life in bottle. Twenty years after bottling, the wines begin to express perfectly.” When we start the tasting, Xavier says, “All the wines will change in the tasting because they have never been in contact with air at all. Because this is an extreme reductive situation, they need a lot of oxygen.”

We tasted from the current release (1999, bottled three months ago) back to the great vintage of 1975. The wines deepen and become more intense with age but always retain a remarkable sense of purity and freshness. They develop very slowly. Clearly just beginning its development, the 1999 seemed almost too young to assess by comparison with the extraordinary 1997. “1997 is completely different. It’s a very particular vintage, the smallest production of Gilette ever, only 40 hl, I needed a special tank. Frost reduced yields, the grapes were harvested in 2 tries, everything was perfect. It’s a very precise vintage,” Xavier says.

“1996 was a good vintage for reds, so there was more passerillage, it was a little bit too hot (for Sauternes). Each vintage is a photographic record of the year,” Xavier comments. It’s a fatter vintage, showing more like a conventional Sauternes, whereas in most vintages the 4.5 ha plot from which Gillette comes expresses itself in a lighter style more like Barsac.

Going back to 1988, you see the result of an unusual vintage that required 11 tries. It’s very pure and precise, but perhaps more overtly sweet than usual, so the 1981, which is not as sweet, givers a clearer sense of its flavor spectrum. The 1979 and 1975 move towards the broader texture of figs and dates, with impressions of bitter orange cutting the sweetness.

Tasting Notes

1999
Medium gold color. Some spices on nose. Viscous, honeyed, long aftertaste shows honey, coffee, caramel, marmalade, but fresher than you usually find in Sauternes. Some citrus on the finish. “1999 gave very pure results with good botrytis. It begins a second life in bottle,” Xavier says.    92  Drink -2042

1997
Slightly darker color than 1999. Quite a piercing nose with citrus to the fore. The freshness is extraordinary. “For me this is a legend,” Xavier says, “it will age for 80 years.” Spicy and elegant, quite reserved now, lots of coffee on the nose following through to the finish. Aftertaste tends to citrus, bitter orange, marmalade. Palate shows honeyed texture but very elegant impression. Elegance is not a word I often use to describe Sauternes, but this stands out in the tasting for its combination of sweetness, complexity, and freshness.    96  Drink -2050

1996
Deeper golden color than 1997. A little spice and marmalade and apricots on the nose; it takes about 30 minutes for the nose actually to come out fully. This is a fatter vintage and more like Sauternes as opposed to Barsac. A touch of bitterness on the finish, you might say bitter orange, some honey and marmalade, long, and finally that bitterness coming back.    91 Drink -2042

1988
Medium gold color moving towards caramel. Nose is quite restrained but promises elegance, with some tight, sweet, botrytized aromas. This shows fruit purity above all else, very tight and precise on the palate, with bitter orange, marmalade, candied fruits, spicy, notes of nougatine, apricots. Complex but precise, with coffee developing on the finish.    93  Drink -2040

1981
Deep orange color. Complex spicy nose remains fresh. Smooth and silky, pure and crystalline, with marmalade and bitter orange predominating on palate on finish. Shows more subtlety because it is not as sweet as 1988.    94  Drink -2042

1979
Quite deep caramel color. Sense of purity shows on spicy nose, follows to palate of apricots, marmalade, some figs in the background, very clean precise lines, sharply delineated, long bitter orange on the finish. Deepens in the glass and increases in intensity. Silky impression on palate.    95  Drink -2042

1975
Deep gold – caramel color. Rich impression of vintage comes through the usual tight expression of the chateau. Very fine and precise, bitter orange dominates the finish with hints of coffee, dates, and figs in the background, long impression retronasally. That sense of bitterness really cuts the sweetness.    94  Drink -2040

Gonzague Lurton has turned conventional wisdom in Bordeaux on its head in recent developments at Durfort Vivens. He has rethought the approach to terroir in conjunction with changing vinification dramatically to bring out the purity of the fruits. It’s almost Burgundian.

Terroir is always there, of course, but it’s in the background in Bordeaux. Chateaux know their terroirs intimately, today there’s a focus on matching varieties to the terroirs where they do best, but all this is in order to express the best blend, which by definition must blur the individual terroirs on which it’s based. Special cuvées tend to be based on selection, and the extreme example of garage wines was based more on methods of viticulture and vinification than special terroirs. (Of course, there are some exceptions of small estates that represent a homogeneous terroir, but they are very much the exception to the rule by large estates.)

When Lucien Lurton purchased Durfort-Vivens from the negociant Ginestet in 1962, it was quite run down. The modern, revival started when Gonzague took over in 1992, and the wine really came to life after a new cuverie was built in 2001. But the biggest change came in 2019. “It’s a chain of ideas,” Gonzague says. “When we moved to biodynamics, we realized something had happened to the fruits. Before the berries matured first and the seeds ten days later. With biodynamics the gap disappeared, and the fruits were ripe and fresh at the same time the tannins matured. When you think about it you realize that we had an aging process for the wine that worked a lot on oxygen, but now we don’t need so much oxygen because the tannins are already soft, and using traditional aging would only reduce quality. So we can use less exposure to oxygen, we can use less racking, and we can use less sulfur. And then we asked what we could do to age for 18 months without sulfur.”

“We were not comfortable trying to do this in barriques, so in 2017, I bought two amphora as a trial. My idea was not to use terra cotta because I heard it was very porous and chateaux trying to use it had oxidized wine. But there is a specialized company that firsts the terra cotta at 1200-1400 degrees instead of 900 degrees, without using sand (which is usually necessary), and then the amphora admit less air than barriques but still some. This is not reductive so we don’t have to rack, so you don’t need sulfur.” So now one third of the grand vin ages in amphorae. “If you use less sulfur, the evolution of the fruits will be slower, and the aging will be better.”

In a second transition, from 2019 the second wine as such ceased production and was replaced by three cuvées from different parcels–the collection is called Les Parcelles Durfort Vivens. “We used to blend to produce the second wine and we always noticed that the character of Cantenac and Soussans was very different, so we started to separate them in 2019,” Gonzague says. “3 ha in the Margaux commune produce top wine each year. The plots in Cantenac and Soussans can go either way” (between grand vin and second wine). The three new cuvees are:

Les Plantes comes from younger vines in all the plots.

Le Hameau comes from about half the plots in Cantenac.

Le Plateau comes from about half the plots in Soussans.

(There’s a difference in Cabernet Sauvignon proportions: in 2019, the grand vin is 90%, Les Plantes is 80%, Le Plateau is 65%, Le Hameau is 59%, but Gonzague does not think that’s the relevant factor.) “Plateau is very round and Hameau is full of energy. After the first year we did this again each year to see if we could repeat it, and the results were the same: the terroir was more important than the exact blend. Each wine is singular, that is what I wanted to show.”

So now Durfort Vivens offers four cuvées. If you compare vintages pre- and post-amphora, the difference is evident. The 2015 is quite polished and round, but still shows a touch of oak. The 2019 has a greater sense of purity, all black fruits, making a very sleek impression. The lifted notes of Hameau 2019 makes a brighter impression than Plateau 2019, which is rounder, juicier, blacker, with greater depth. Les Plantes 2019 feels more like a typical second wine, lighter, fresher, easy to drink. All this gives a view of the commune of Margaux that could never be obtained from conventional grand and second vins.

Tasting Notes of the 2019s

Les Plantes

Black fruit nose with touch of asperity. Pure fruits on palate poised between black and red, smooth and polished, with fresh acidity at the end. There is the energy of young vines with a light expression on the palate. This seems to be in the model of most second wines today, lighter, easy to drink, and ready immediately. Light tannins are well in the background, with palate and finish driven by fruits rather than tannins. 88 Drink now-2027.

Le Plateau

Rounder, deeper, juicier than Les Plantes, moving more from red fruits towards black fruits, polished tannins showing a bare hint of bitterness on the finish. The elegance of Margaux is certainly here, and that polished impression dominates the finish. 89 Drink now-2028.

Le Hameau

A brighter impression than Plateau, more red than black fruits, with lively acidity, more energetic and less polished, readier to drink. This offers the tightest impression of the trio. In another year, it may release more flavors. It is more lifted. 88 Drink now-2027.

Château Durfort-Vivens

More complex on the nose and more aromatic than any of the individual cuvees of the trio. Nicely perfumed nose leads into black fruit palate, deeper than any of the trio and more varied in flavors, Fresh acidity keeps this lively, with overall a sleek impression of modern Margaux. You can see the roundness and depth of Plateau and the lift of Hameau.    92 Drink now-2034.

It was a mob scene when I arrived at Château Valandraud. Two huge coaches had just disgorged a huge group of visitors from Pernod-Ricard. There could scarcely be a greater contrast between Jean-Luc Thunevin’s new winery and the beginning, when the first vintage was made in his garage. A couple of miles to the east of the village of St. Emilion, there is now a building that from the road looks like a château, surrounded by 9 ha of vines. Behind the château is an ultramodern cuverie, all glass and wood, very light and airy, but its size is not obvious until you walk round the side of the building.  Running along from the cuverie is a hidden barrel room. It’s hidden because you can’t see it at all from the approach, but when you walk around the back, it’s curved into a circular arc nestled into the hillside, with a living roof on top that to all intents and purposes is part of the landscape. Jena-Luc is very proud that it’s light and spacious inside, but very eco-friendly. The completely new facilities were completed three years ago.

Inside, double vats line each side of the hall, some are stainless steel, others have an oak vat balanced on top of a stainless steel vat. Jean-Luc’s references as we walk around are to other grand châteaux. Gesturing to the arrangement of vats, he says with a grin, “the model was haut Brion.” Then as we enter the barrel room, he says, “the model was Cheval Blanc,” a reference to its ultra-modern winery with a living roof. When asked about the vineyards, Jean-Luc says that all 9 ha are around the château, “for the moment.” Altogether he now has about 60 ha with other properties in Bordeaux, including 40 ha in St. Emilion.

We start the tasting with the white, which started in 2003, and comes from a small block just below the château. It’s a third each of Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, and Sémillon. Production is about 4,000 bottles per year. It ages in 100% new oak; Jean-Luc seems slightly surprised at the question about new oak, as though there couldn’t any doubt that all the wines at Valandraud use 100% new oak. He draws some parallels with Haut Brion and Pavillon de Château Margaux. “It’s a produit de luxe,” he says. It’s quite fresh and lively, but has 15.5% alcohol. When asked about the implications of climate change for increasing alcohol, Jean-Luc is unperturbed. “Global warming has been good for Bordeaux, wine has to have alcohol,” he says. “Grenache from Châteauneuf du Pape has 16% alcohol and it’s very good wine.” When we taste Valandraud itself, the alcohol level is 14.5%, and Jean-Luc says, “14.5% is the minimum now, it’s not a problem because the natural acidity is good.” There’s a second wine in both red and white, now called Virginie, and here there seems to be a slightly different view of ripeness because the Virgine Blanc comes in at 13.5% alcohol.

“What vintage of Valandraud would you like to taste,” he asks. I suggest whatever vintage he thinks best shows the typicity of Valandraud. He looks a bit quizzical at this, as if to question whether any single vintage can sufficiently demonstrate typicity, but returns with the 2012. This was the first vintage of Valandraud’s classification as a premier grand cru classé. “The calcareous terroir gives the it richness and acidity,” he says. It’s a mature hue, but still densely colored, and the fruits have certainly matured. Tannins are resolving, but the palate hasn’t reached a tertiary stage yet, and it shows a nice restraint, not at all flashy as the criticism of early garage wines might have led you to expect. In fact, blind I’d have guessed at a higher proportion of Cabernet Franc than the actual 15%, as it has more structure than I would expect of 85% Merlot. Has the wine changed now it’s made from specific terroir at the château, I asked. “It’s still artisanal,” is the answer, “there’s lots of selection, malolactic fermentation in barrique, etc. With the gravity feed winery, it’s more precise.” (Jean-Luc hasn’t changed either: he still has that wicked sense of the jugular.)

The vintage brings up the issue of the St. Emilion classification, a huge controversy in the appellation today, as several important châteaux have announced they will not participate in this year’s revision of classification. “Me, the revolutionary, I’m all for the classification,” Jean-Luc says with a wicked grin. He believes in the basis for classification—“90% is the quality of the wine”—because it brings competitions, and he rattles off the names of a number of château who are improving their game in order to try for promotion to a higher category of classification. “Look at all the talent we have in St. Emilion,” he says. “They all want to be premier grand cru classé.”

Tasting Notes

Château Valandraud, 2012
Merlot 88%; Cabernet Franc 12%
Dark appearance, still intense, but with orange hues showing age. Palate shows mature black fruits with some herbal overtones, tannins resolving to leave a supple impression. Overall quite restrained, not at all flashy, good supporting acidity, just a little dryness still showing on the finish where the herbal impressions intensify retronasally. 14.5% 92 Drink now-2028.

Blanc de Valandraud, 2019
Sauvignon Blanc 33%; Sémillon 33%; Sauvignon Gris 33%
Nose shows some light citrus, following to palate with a hint of bitterness at the end. New oak shows as texture and hints of smoke. Alcohol brings a touch of heat to the finish. Palate is fresh and lively. 15.5% 90 Drink now-2028.

Blanc de Valandraud, 2016 
A rich but measured impression. Nose is quite reserved but not quite herbal. Semillon seems more obvious on the palate than Sauvignon Blanc, which has been toned down by the oak. Alcohol does taste high, but feels more around 14% than the actual level. It contributes to the sense of richness but also adds a touch of heat and bitterness to the finish. The wine stays firnmly in the stone fruit spectrum and develops greater complexity as it opens on the glass. 15.5%  92 Drink -2026
Sauvignon Blanc 30%, Sémillon 50%, Sauvignon Gris 20%

Virginie de Valandraud Blanc, 2016

A fresher impression than the Blanc de Valandraud, crisp but not too aggressive. Some texture develops in the glass t ooffset the citrus palate. It’s a less “serious” wine than the Valandraud Blanc but good, and still going strong after six years with no signs of tiring.Château Valandraud, 2012