wein.plus
Attention
You are using an old browser that may not function as expected.
For a better, safer browsing experience, please upgrade your browser.

Log in Become a Member

FBOxx150_RGB_1_1_1"That we didn't discover this winery sooner... But better late than never," writes one of my favorite wine merchants. What am I to make of this? Clumsy advertising or genuine regret? Hard to tell. Only one thing helps. Buy two or three bottles (price 35 CHF) and taste for yourself. Thought, done! But I made the mistake of opening the first bottle as a prelude to an evening with friends and two wonderful old wines. Of course, the expectation was high and the disappointment (especially in comparison with the old wines) was pre-programmed. You don't put a Bordeaux, vintage 2010, if you pour great growths from the nineties afterwards: too young, still too much in the development stage. I am actually aware of this, but curiosity was greater (than reason). As a result, we hardly ever spoke of this "small" wine. A pity, actually. Half of it stayed in the bottle (I didn't decant it - contrary to my habits - because I wanted to save the rest). And that was good. The next day - after a few hours - the wine was completely different, much more accessible, much more personal, much more aromatic, much more spicy... Once again, the experience confirms: to estimate the potential of young wines (and 4 years is little, too little for a Bordeaux) is extremely difficult. Not only do you need experience, early tasters may excuse me, you also need some imagination. The bottle I opened a day earlier brought the imagination back to reality and subsequently gave me an experience that settled somewhere between admiration and surprise. The winery - which I had never heard of before - is located in Saint Christoly en Medoc in the very north, where there are hardly any renowned - let alone famous - wineries anymore. After all, Saint Christoly is located at the Gironde, where the river is already wide and where some quite good Cru Bourgoise (like Le Boscq, Grands Chènes, Haut Canteloup) are at home. But Clos Manou? If you look for the winery in Bordeaux literature, you will hardly find it (not even in the latest editions) or it is only mentioned in passing. It's different on the internet: there, it appears again and again, almost as an "insider tip", which, of course, hasn't been secret for long. The information about the winery is in fact similar, as are probably more or less from each other: a good story that can be marketed and therefore flashes up again and again: "The owner, a great wine lover and enthusiastic winemaker, was previously active in a cooperative. He set out on his own with his equally enthusiastic wife Françoise to create this gem." Or: "Certainly one of the most extreme wineries in the Medoc.....The 12 hectares of vineyard are extremely well tended and stocked with basically 10,000 vines/ha... 130403EYou have to see it to believe these perfectly organically tended and aerated soils!" I haven't seen it (yet). But tasted the wine. It is indeed - looking away from its youth - a great "small" Bordeaux. Small? Actually not, rather big, rather impressive, very independent, not marked by "technique", rather "full" of Bordeaux in the rather loamy northern Médoc. In this wine - so it seems to me - there is still a lot of craft, a lot of care, a lot of terroir (to use the hackneyed word) involved. Originality and class, these are probably the two most appropriate terms. "Everything is geared towards maintaining lots of fruit and gentle processing without any bitterness... The old Cabernet vines brings extremely high extract... Incredibly spicy cassis-currant nose with blackberry, dark black cherry. Extremely dense. Aromatic." For once, I can relate to all of this. It remains for me - like probably many other wine lovers - to keep an eye on the winery and to try more mature vintages as soon as possible. Only: this will be difficult, because the 1999 vintage (I think) was the first and probably not the best yet. There remains (for the time being) a small time window to prove itself as a good Bordeaux to also long-term.

Related Magazine Articles

View All
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More
More

EVENTS NEAR YOU

PREMIUM PARTNERS