Rose Marie Chateau Le Puy 2024

Rose Marie Chateau Le Puy, biodynamic, no added sulphur, oak aged after short maceration and dynamisation.  Quite simply the perfect glass of Rose.  This is a ‘Rosé de saignée’ (the bleeding method). The wine is taken out from a fermented tank of Merlot after a few hours once enough colour is extracted. The fermentation by dynamisation takes place in old oak barrels. The wine is bottled without fining, filtering and without any addition of sulphites.  This is simply perfect Rose in every way.  Although the colour is quite deep and the wine matures for a year in barrels, the freshness and lightness of touch is incredible.  The aroma and palate are layered and complex and so you can enjoy this as a top bottle of claret for contemplation or just smash it with an amazing BBQ and be very happy.

Owned by the Amoreau family since 1610, Château Le Puy overlooks the Dordogne valley on the same geological plateau as Saint-Emilion and Pomerol, 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. The vines are 85% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% of very old 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.  They are 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.’