2000 Le Dôme, St Emilion, Bordeaux

2000 Le Dôme, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Product: 20008124546
 
2000 Le Dôme, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
You can place a bid for this wine on BBX

Description

1.6 hectare parcel next to Chateau Angelus. Very good colour. Lovely rich, oaky nose. Much less Merlot in flavour than the Laforge. Full, very cool and composed. Fullish body. Very good tannins. Excellent grip. Much richer and more concentrated than Laforge. Lots and lots of dimension and definition and very fine class. Bravo!
(Clive Coates MW - The Vine - 2001)

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

About this WINE

Le Dome

Le Dome

Le Dôme is a single vineyard less than three hectares in size and is owned by Jonathan Maltus of Château Teyssier fame. Le Dôme represents the highest proportion of Cabernet Franc in wine of this level from Bordeaux. Seventy percent of the vineyard is dedicated to this variety and the rest is old vine Merlot.

The vines were planted in the 1950's on sandy soil and the yield is reduced by up to three runs of green harvesting. Concentration and definition are therefore the watchwords for this benchmark wine. The grapes are harvested at the precise moment of ripeness, hand-picked and after double-triage are transported into wooden vats. Secondary fermentation in French oak barrels is followed by a traditional approach to ageing.

The production of Le Dôme is not large. What little exists, however is made with no expense spared in the pursuit of excellence.

Find out more
St Émilion

St Émilion

St Émilion is one of Bordeaux's largest producing appellations, producing more wine than Listrac, Moulis, St Estèphe, Pauillac, St Julien and Margaux put together. St Emilion has been producing wine for longer than the Médoc but its lack of accessibility to Bordeaux's port and market-restricted exports to mainland Europe meant the region initially did not enjoy the commercial success that funded the great châteaux of the Left Bank. 

St Émilion itself is the prettiest of Bordeaux's wine towns, perched on top of the steep limestone slopes upon which many of the region's finest vineyards are situated. However, more than half of the appellation's vineyards lie on the plain between the town and the Dordogne River on sandy, alluvial soils with a sprinkling of gravel. 

Further diversity is added by a small, complex gravel bed to the north-east of the region on the border with Pomerol.  Atypically for St Émilion, this allows Cabernet Franc and, to a lesser extent, Cabernet Sauvignon to prosper and defines the personality of the great wines such as Ch. Cheval Blanc.  

In the early 1990s there was an explosion of experimentation and evolution, leading to the rise of the garagistes, producers of deeply-concentrated wines made in very small quantities and offered at high prices.  The appellation is also surrounded by four satellite appellations, Montagne, Lussac, Puisseguin and St. Georges, which enjoy a family similarity but not the complexity of the best wines.

St Émilion was first officially classified in 1954, and is the most meritocratic classification system in Bordeaux, as it is regularly amended. The most recent revision of the classification was in 2012

Find out more
Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc

Cabernet Franc is widely planted in Bordeaux and is the most important black grape grown in the Loire. In the Médoc it may constitute up to 15% of a typical vineyard - it is always blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and is used to add bouquet and complexity to the wines. It is more widely used in St.Emilion where it adapts well to the cooler and moister clay soils - Cheval Blanc is the most famous Cabernet Franc wine in the world, with the final blend consisting of up to 65% of the grape.

Cabernet Franc thrives in the Loire where the cooler growing conditions serve to accentuate the grape's herbaceous, grassy, lead pencil aromas. The best wines come from the tuffeaux limestone slopes of Chinon and Bourgeil where growers such as Jacky Blot produce intense well-structured wines that possess excellent cellaring potential.

Find out more