Chateau Le Puy, Emilien, Bordeaux 2021

The Amoreau family has been making wine at Château le Puy since 1610 - longer than there's been a city of Boston, since before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and before the first Thanksgiving. Located on the highest point in the Bordeaux Côtes-de-Francs AOC it sits strategically above the Dordogne River and atop the "Coteau des Merveilles ", the same rocky plateau which forms the soils of Pommerol and Saint-Emilion.

However Jean-Pierre Amoreau and his son Pascal (14th and 15th generations at Le Puy) aren't content to mimique those appellations to their east insisting that theirs has always been a singular terroir. One which may soon be officially recognized as the INAO is considering creating a new, single-vineyard AOC in Bordeaux: Le Puy.

The harvest is done manually with multiple passes in the vineyard. All fermentations are spontaneous in custom built concrete tanks to allow a submerged cap - no pigeage or pumping over needed. The resulting tannins are exceptionally soft and velvety. Barthelemy is aged in cask by stirring and without addition of sulfites. Lees stirring is used to protect the wines from oxidation. Racking, battonage and bottling of all wines are done during favorable phases of the moon according to the biodynamic calendar.

Surface Area : 51 hectares in three separate plots located on the same rocky plateau.

Terroir : 10% clay-silt with clay-limestone substrate, 65% clay-silt-limestone with limestone substrate, 25% clay-limestone

Red Varieties : 85% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 1% Malbec, 1% Carmenère

Gravesac Plantation density : 5000 vines per hectare.

Age du vignoble : 50 years average. 

Average yield : 29.45l hl per hectare over the past 10 years