2016 Château Monbousquet Blanc, St Emilion, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
Lisa Perrotti-Brown - 29/03/2019
Jancis Robinson - 25th April 2017
Drinking Window 2018 - 2030.
Jane Anson - Decanter, 3rd April 2017
About this WINE
Chateau Monbousquet
Château Monbousquet is located in the commune of St- Sulplice de Faleyrens in the south-east part of the St-Emilion appellation. For years Monbousquet was a notorious underachiever, whose wines were soft, dilute and generally uninspiring.
The catalyst for change came when the property was bought by Parisian supermarket tycoon Gérard Perse in 1993. Gérard, who now owns Château Pavie and Château Pavie-Decesse, severely restricted the yields, constructed a state of the art cuvier and hired the ubiquitous Michel Rolland as a consultant. Monbousquet's wines are now amongst the finest in St-Emilion.
Monbousquet is a blend of 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes are fermented in temperature-controlled, stainless steel tanks and the wine is then aged in 100% new oak barrels for 18 months. Monbousquet is bottled unfined and unfiltered.
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
Sauvignon Blanc
An important white grape in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley that has now found fame in New Zealand and now Chile. It thrives on the gravelly soils of Bordeaux and is blended with Sémillon to produce fresh, dry, crisp Bordeaux Blancs, as well as more prestigious Cru Classé White Graves.
It is also blended with Sémillon, though in lower proportions, to produce the great sweet wines of Sauternes. It performs well in the Loire Valley and particularly on the well-drained chalky soils found in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, where it produces bone dry, highly aromatic, racy wines, with grassy and sometimes smoky, gunflint-like nuances.
In New Zealand, Cloudy Bay in the 1980s began producing stunning Sauvignon Blanc wines with extraordinarily intense nettly, gooseberry, and asparagus fruit, that set Marlborough firmly on the world wine map. Today many producers are rivalling Cloudy Bay in terms of quality and Sauvignon Blanc is now New Zealand`s trademark grape.
It is now grown very successfully in Chile producing wines that are almost halfway between the Loire and New Zealand in terms of fruit character. After several false starts, many South African producers are now producing very good quality, rounded fruit-driven Sauvignon Blancs.
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Description
They harvested here at the end of August to maintain freshness. The result is a rich but well balanced white wine with crisp fresh apricot and gentle white pear notes. 60% Sauvignon Blanc, 30% Sauvignon Gris, 5% Sémillon and 5% Muscadelle, aged in 50% new oak. 36hl/ha yield.
Drinking Window 2018 - 2030.
Jane Anson - Decanter, 3rd April 2017
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