Description

NOTE: La Dame De Bouard 2018 is due to arrival in 2021.

La Dame De Bouard is the second wine of Clos Bouard. Coralie de Bouard and her husband Loic Maillet bought this estate in 2016. Coralie is also the daughter of Hubert de Bouard who owns Chateau Angelus. Clos Bouard is in a satellite of St Emilion not far from Troplong Mondot, and Valandraud. Two Estates I love. In the ground, they have 66% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. They are on a hillside terroir featuring clay and limestone. The average vine age is 35 years but some vines are up to 60 or 70 years of age.

Bordeaux

Situated near the Atlantic coast of France. The Gironde, Dordogne and Garonne rivers provide its shape. Cool conditions and frequent rainfall, including during harvest time, make Bordeaux quite a marginal region with vintages frequently ruined by rain or saved from the rain at the last-minute by timely sunshine.

Montagne St Emilion

Montagne St Emilion consists of 1,549 hectares of vines. It is the largest of the St. Emilion Satellites. It can only produce red wines with Merlot being the major planting. Only a small river separates Montagne from St Emilion itself. The Terroir is similar to St Emilion: Rolling hills and clay with limestone on the slopes for its soils. The plateau has limestone, gravel and sand in the soil.

Merlot

It gets a tough time most of the places it is grown. But in Pomerol and Saint-Emilion Merlot not only dominates but makes some of the best wines in the world. Perfume, silky and plush. Cabernets Franc and Sauvignon season the wines with structure and acid but in some places, like Petrus, they are almost not needed.

Cabernet Franc

Is actually one of the parents of Cabernet Sauvignon… along with Sauvignon Blanc (oh! The name makes sense now!).  It is most famous for being the third most important grape in quality Bordeaux but also excels in the Loire Valley (where it lived before it went to Bordeaux), especially Chinon and Saumur. The wines are bright red in colour, highlight aromatic with raspberries, rose petals, violets along with tobacco, cassis and some herbal elements. The best examples can live as long as any great wine.

Cabernet Sauvignon

The main grape of Bordeaux’s left bank. Cabernet is late ripening and full of acid and tannin. The great wines are structured but finessed with beautiful cassis, violets and it also transmits the flavours of the soil it is grown in really well. Cabernet isn’t a drink now variety, it really needs 10 or more years to show its best. But when you get there, WOW! Often blended with Merlot, Cabernet Franc or in Australia Shiraz to fill out its mid-palate referred to as the ‘Cabernet doughnut’.

2018

Quality Red Bordeaux in 2018 will be deeply coloured, aromatically complex, and opulent in the mouth. While it sounds like they will be ready to go from day one, most experts are predicting this is a vintage for long-term cellaring. Think 30 years or more!  It wasn’t the best start to the vintage so quality is not uniform. Look for Northern Medoc, Margaux, Pomerol and Saint-Emilion.