2017 Château Bellevue Mondotte, St Emilion, Bordeaux

2017 Château Bellevue Mondotte, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Product: 20178125149
 
2017 Château Bellevue Mondotte, St Emilion, Bordeaux

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Description

The 2017 Bellevue Mondotte is just as impressive from bottle as it was en primeur. Powerful and structured, with tremendous intensity in all of its dimensions, the 2017 is all class. Inky dark fruit, graphite, menthol and licorice all come together with time in the glass. This tiny vineyard on very poor limestone subsoil gives wines of real power and structure. The 2017 is a gorgeous Saint-Émilion endowed with tons of energy and tension.

Drink 2027-2042

Antonio Galloni, Vinous (Mar 2020)

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Critics reviews

Antonio Galloni, Vinous96/100
The 2017 Bellevue Mondotte is just as impressive from bottle as it was en primeur. Powerful and structured, with tremendous intensity in all of its dimensions, the 2017 is all class. Inky dark fruit, graphite, menthol and licorice all come together with time in the glass. This tiny vineyard on very poor limestone subsoil gives wines of real power and structure. The 2017 is a gorgeous Saint-Émilion endowed with tons of energy and tension.

Drink 2027-2042

Antonio Galloni, Vinous (Mar 2020) Read more
Wine Advocate96-98/100
There was no frost in this vineyard in 2017, due to its elevation. Made up of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc, the very deep purple-black colored 2017 Bellevue Mondotte has a seriously earthy charactermolten rockswith suggestions of truffles and fertile soil over a core of crme de cassis and plum preserves, plus a hint of camphor. The palate is medium to full-bodied, concentrated, intense and powerful with firm, grainy tannins and wonderful freshness, finishing long.
Lisa Perrotti-Brown - 27/04/2018 Read more
Wine Advocate92/100
Located right next to Pavie Decesse, this is gourmet and very good quality. It hangs on through the palate, offering dark choclate flavours, although a little less light and dark relief than with the Pavie Decesse. This is a vintage where the Perse team can go all out and the brakes come naturally.

Drink 2025-2042

Decanter (Feb 2020) Read more
Jeb Dunnuck96/100
Based on 60% Merlot and 15% each of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, brought up in new barrels, the 2017 Bellevue Mondotte sports a deep, inky color as well as a seamless, seductive, opulent style that's rarely found in the vintage. Creme de cassis, cold iron, macerated cherries, and toasted spice as well as touch of chocolate give way to a massive, full-bodied, rounded 2017 that already offers tons of pleasure.

Drink 2020-2037

Jeb Dunnuck, jebdunnuck.com (Feb 2020) Read more

About this WINE

Bellevue Mondotte

Bellevue Mondotte

Chateau Bellevue Mondotte is a tiny, 2-hectare wine property on the limestone plateau of St Emilion, bought in 2001 by Gérard Perse, owner of the celebrated premier Grand Cru Classé Ch. Pavie.

Merlot comprises over 90% of the blend with a dash of both Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The vineyard faces south at an altitude of 80 metres above sea-level, and the average age of the vines is 45 years.

The wine falls very much into the garagiste camp, being aged in 100% new oak and produced from tiny yields of 15-20 hectolitres per hectare.

Michel Rolland is the consultant oenologist. After 6 months ageing on its lees the wine remains in barrel for a further 18 months before being bottled unfiltered and unfined.

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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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Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

Cabernet Sauvignon Blend

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and  Australia.

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