2014 Clos Fourtet, St Emilion, Bordeaux

2014 Clos Fourtet, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Product: 20148124852
 
2014 Clos Fourtet, St Emilion, Bordeaux

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Description

The Clos Fourtet 2014 is a blend of 89% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon and 4% Cabernet Franc, picked between 3 October until around the 21 October. Mathieu Cuvelier found good freshness and acidity in the wine and compared it to the 2001 - a straight and long wine. It has an opulent bouquet with macerated black cherries and blueberry fruit, plenty of new oak but it is nicely integrated. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, blackcurrant and boysenberry fruit intermingling with orange zest and a touch of tobacco on the finish. It will need three of four years in bottle to fully coalesce, but otherwise this should be a fine Saint Emilion.
Neal Martin - Wine Advocate - eRobertParker.com #218 Apr 2015

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Critics reviews

Wine Advocate90-92/100
The Clos Fourtet 2014 is a blend of 89% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon and 4% Cabernet Franc, picked between 3 October until around the 21 October. Mathieu Cuvelier found good freshness and acidity in the wine and compared it to the 2001 - a straight and long wine. It has an opulent bouquet with macerated black cherries and blueberry fruit, plenty of new oak but it is nicely integrated. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, blackcurrant and boysenberry fruit intermingling with orange zest and a touch of tobacco on the finish. It will need three of four years in bottle to fully coalesce, but otherwise this should be a fine Saint Emilion.
Neal Martin - Wine Advocate - eRobertParker.com #218 Apr 2015 Read more
Jancis Robinson MW16/20
Mid crimson. Pale rim. Very sweet nose and rather mild palate. Not attention grabbing but nor is it exaggerated. Just rather low key and well behaved. Fresh but rather sudden finish.
Jancis Robinson MW - jancisrobinson.com - Apr 2015 Read more
Decanter18/20
Super wine. Lovely pitch of ripeness. Tiny berry fruit on the nose. Exquisite tannins and texture. Smooth, fine boned and fresh, the limestone terroir evident. Tannins abundant but finely etched. Long, persistent finish. Poised. Read more

About this WINE

Clos Fourtet

Clos Fourtet

Château Clos Fourtet is a St. Emilion 1er Grand Cru Classé property located just outside the entrance to the town. It is distinguished by its beautiful ivy-covered manor house and some of the most extensive underground cellars in the region.

Clos Fourtet has had several owners over the years and underwent a mini-renaissance under the stewardship of the Lurtons in the latter half of the last century. Pierre Lurton was the winemaker who really established the property`s reputation as one of the finest on the St. Martin plateau. He left to become winemaker at Cheval Blanc and was replaced by Daniel Alard. In January 2001, Clos Fourtet was bought by Paris businessman Phillipe Cuvelier.

Clos Fourtet has 19 hectares of vineyards planted with Merlot (72%), Cabernet Franc (22%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (6%). The wine is vinified traditionally and is aged in oak barriques (60-70% new) for 18 months. It is bottled unfiltered.

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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

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Merlot

Merlot

The most widely planted grape in Bordeaux and a grape that has been on a relentless expansion drive throughout the world in the last decade. Merlot is adaptable to most soils and is relatively simple to cultivate. It is a vigorous naturally high yielding grape that requires savage pruning - over-cropped Merlot-based wines are dilute and bland. It is also vital to pick at optimum ripeness as Merlot can quickly lose its varietal characteristics if harvested overripe.

In St.Emilion and Pomerol it withstands the moist clay rich soils far better than Cabernet grapes, and at it best produces opulently rich, plummy clarets with succulent fruitcake-like nuances. Le Pin, Pétrus and Clinet are examples of hedonistically rich Merlot wines at their very best. It also plays a key supporting role in filling out the middle palate of the Cabernet-dominated wines of the Médoc and Graves.

Merlot is now grown in virtually all wine growing countries and is particularly successful in California, Chile and Northern Italy.

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