Chateau le Puy Emilien 2018

Cotes de Bordeaux Chateau Le Puy Emilien 2018 NEW VINTAGE, biodynamic wine, 85% Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Carmenere, Petit Verdot, new vintage of this pure and elegant Bordeaux. Chateau le Puy is now an icon of the world of biodynamic wine and it has succeeded in having part of the estate recognised with its own AOC, something only a handful of French domaines have managed. This is recognition, not only of the unique and very special terroir, untouched by chemical intervention in 400 years but also the passion and dedication of Pascal Amoreau and his team. A beautiful place, a delicious and authentic wine and an inspiration to wine producers around the world, Chapeau, Chateau le Puy. The 18 is a full bodied vintage, 14% abv, very ripe dark fruits, almost prune like, the pallet is round plummy, the tannins are already soft and integrated, a delicious wine for earlier drinking, but will still age nicely over the next 8 years or so.

Owned by the Amoreau family since 1610, Château Le Puy overlooks the Dordogne valley on the same geological plateau as Saint-Emilion and Pommerol, once called the ‘Plateau of Wonders’.

The Château was originally built at the beginning of the 17th century and later extended in 1832 by Barthélémy Amoreau. There are 35 hectares of vines spread over three plots with soils made of clay, limestone and silica. It's quite common to find some sharpened flints between the vines as some parts used to be battlefields in medieval times. There vines are 85% of Merlot, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% of very old vines of Carménère. There is also a small patch of old vines of Semillon from where they make their delicious un-sulphured white Marie Cecile. The current crop of family wine makers, Jean-Pierre, Françoise and Pascal are the 15th generation and winemaking methods have barely changed in all that time meaning that Chateau Le Puy Claret has a taste reminiscent of the 1940's and 1950's (so i am told) truly reflecting the terroir, the moderate climate and the finesse of the grapes varieties. They work using biodynamic principles, no chemicals, low yields, no yeasting nor chaptalization, long ageing and very low added sulphites if any. These are rare bottles in Bordeaux, not trying to impress wine critics or grab headlines, not trying to fetch mind boggling prices on the international markets (although the older they get, the pricier they become) and not trying to express anything other than what they can produce in their vineyard. They are bottles of Bordeaux that made me like Bordeaux again and although we have rarely had the opportunity to taste the very old vintages, we know these wines age majestically.A wine maker according to Jean Pierre Amoreau....‘Being a wine grower is being an artist with method, audacious with reflection, enthusiast with meditation, ardent with patience, stubborn with imagination, thrifty with generosity.’