Anson: Bordeaux’s single-variety wines under the spotlight

Ornellaia in Tuscany, Sloan Estate in Napa, Pask Winery in Gimblett Gravels… is there a major winemaking region worldwide that doesn’t produce at least one icon ‘Bordeaux blend’?

Although the exact meaning can change, it’s a generally agreed shortcut for any red wine that is made from a mix of Cabernet Sauvignon and/or Merlot, Cabernet Franc and other grapes that are typically planted in the Bordeaux region.

Scroll down to see Jane Anson’s tasting notes and scores for a selection of Bordeaux’s single-variety wines

The name has weight because Bordeaux has been making blended wines for centuries – even if for much of that time local winemakers had little choice but to give themselves a range of possible ingredients for their wine.

The oceanic climate of Bordeaux, its size, and its wide range of soil types still mean that a single grape variety has a tough time successfully delivering great wine year on year.

At the same time, you have always been able to find single variety wines if you look (or if you can afford it, in the case of the Merlot-focused Petrus and Le Pin). One option is also to seek out unusual vintages, such as Château Haut-Bailly 1996 with its 100% Cabernet Sauvignon.

But the last few years have seen the category multiply across all varieties – and the vast majority are extremely affordable.

I’m pretty sure the reason for this is that we have seen Bordeaux embracing the complex realities of its terroirs, isolating and identifying different plots and treating them differently in terms of viticulture and cellar work.

It makes sense that it’s a short step from this identification to wanting to experiment with bottling the results individually.

The trend is also helped, inevitably, by more reliable ripening windows. Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, is increasingly used at 90%+ levels for the very top Médoc estates (such as Lafite Rothschild 2019 at 94% Cabernet Sauvignon).

You can also find 100% Cabernet Sauvignons helped by a warming climate that means the green pyrazine character is less common. Look out for Cuvée Marguerite Déjean from Château Moutte Blanc in Haut-Médoc, or Cuvée Eléonore from Château Vieille Dynastie in Lalande de Pomerol, or Hubert de Boüard Cabernet Sauvignon.

Easier ripening is also why you are starting to see 100% Malbecs, or even 100% Chardonnays bottled as Vin de France but grown on Bordeaux soils.

You’ll find excellent examples all over, but I have chosen to highlight three here from different branches of the Lurton family. The first has already created a number of headlines as the first dry white from Château Climens in Barsac.

Inevitably, as it is the only grape planted in the Climens soils, it’s 100% Sémillon, created by owner Bérénice Lurton and given the name Asphodèle – a flower that grows on limestone soils and symbolises rebirth.

Farmed biodynamically, as is all Climens wine, Asphodèle is unusual for a Bordeaux dry white in that it uses only natural yeasts, and is aged on the lees but unoaked, with grapes picked from young vines on the earliest ripening soils.

Its first vintage was in 2018, after a meeting between Bérénice Lurton and Loire legend Pascal Jolivet at a New York wine tasting.

Jolivet consulted on the conception and realisation of the first vintage, but going forward it is the Climens team who are entirely overseeing Asphodèle– and for me it already stands as one of the very best examples of this style of wine in Bordeaux.

Bérénice’s cousin, Jacques Lurton, introduced his own range of single variety wines a year later with the 2019 vintage, under the name Diane.

The idea, Lurton tells me, came to him when he was walking the vineyards after returning to Bordeaux full-time following his father Andre’s death aged 94, in May 2019. He came across a number of extremely old vines at the family estate of Château Bonnet.

‘The first one I really identified was a plot of old Sémillon vines – a grape that I loved in Australia also,’ says Lurton.

‘The plot was facing full south, and the vines were old, knarled, ugly… and made magnificent grapes. The older Sémillon is, the more it expresses its character.’

He has applied New World techniques to the winemaking – precision, low temperature fermentation, looking for an expression of the variety above all. I have tasted here the Sémillon and the Cabernet Sauvignon, but you can also find Muscadelle and Sauvignon Blanc.

A few miles from Château Bonnet is another Lurton property that is showcasing the potential of single variety Bordeaux. This is (another cousin) Pierre Lurton’s home estate of Château Marjosse, located on largely clay limestone soils of the Dordogne Valley.

Lurton grew up at the nearby Chateau Reynier with his father Dominique Lurton, and began renting a few plots from former owner General Georges Deleuze in 1990.

Lurton vinified his first year entirely by hand, and although the following year he was hired to run Château Cheval Blanc and Château d’Yquem, he kept slowly buying plots of vines at Château Marjosse as he was able to afford. He built a cellar in 2000, but only was able to buy the entire estate and château in 2013.

Since then, his focus on the potential of Marjosse has steadily increased. In 2018, he hired technical director Jean-Marc Domme, who had worked as trainee at Yquem in 2004, before working at Figeac, then in Banyuls, and then at Clos l’Eglise in Pomerol – before rejoining Lurton at Marjosse.

Together they have created a range of wines under the name Anthologie de Marjosse with a focus on the estate’s oldest vines, including Malbec, Sauvignon Gris and Muscadelle.

Today Marjosse is run by Pierre Lurton’s wife, Alexandra Forbes, who tells me, ‘When Pierre redid the winery, bringing in smaller vats, he was able to vinify these grapes separately for the first time in Marjosse’s history. We have now carried out a massal selection of our old Malbecs and plant a second plot.’

They also spoke with Aubert de Villaine [of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti fame] in Vosne-Romanée, and enlisted his help in sourcing Burgundian Chardonnay clones that were grafted onto rootstock that was previously Sauvignon Blanc.

And, in a perk of Lurton’s day job in terms of purchasing, the whites are fermented or aged in former Y d’Yquem barrels.

Tasting Bordeaux’s single-variety wines

I have tasted a few non-Lurton wines here, including Mathieu Chardonnier’s Château Marsau, a 100% Merlot from Francs Côtes de Bordeaux and a range from Invindia wines, with some excellent examples such as Full Metal Malbec (sadly not widely available). There are many other Bordeaux single-variety wines that are worth looking out for, including:

100% Merlot

Château La Gomerie, St-Emilion Grand Cru

Château La Voûte, St-Emilion Grand Cru

La Fleur de Gay, Pomerol

Le Plus de La Fleur de Boüard, Lalande de Pomerol

Château Marsau, Francs

Château Moutte Blanc, Margaux

Château Les Vimières, Margaux

100% Petit-Verdot

Château des Léotins, Cuvée Petit Verdot, Vignobles Lumeau

Petit Verdot de Château Belle-Vue, Haut-Médoc

Château Ségonzac Petit Verdot, Blaye

Château Haut Barade « 100% Petit Verdot » – Sichel- bordeaux

100% Malbec

Château Civrac, Super Malbec, Côtes de Bourg

Château Le Geai, Bordeaux

Château Magdeleine-Bouhou, cuvée ‘La Petite Magdeleine’, Blaye

Château Tire Pé, Les Malbecs, Bordeaux

Château Bonnange, Blaye

100% Cabernet Sauvignon

Château Moulin de La Gache, Cuvée Saint Pierre, Blaye

Château Moutte Blanc, Cuvée Marguerite Déjean, Haut Médoc

Hubert de Boüard Cabernet Sauvignon

100% Cabernet Franc

Château Trottevieille ‘Les Vieilles Vignes’, St-Emilion Grand Cru

Hubert de Boüard Cabernet Franc

Château Fleur Haut Gaussens, La Bergeronnette, Bordeaux

100% Carménère

Château Le Geai, AOC Bordeaux

100% Syrah

Château Thieuley, Les Truffières Syrah

100% Chardonnay

Clos Dubreuil Chardonnay

Château Thieuley Chardonnay

Hubert de Boüard Chardonnay

Château la Grâce Dieu des Prieurs Chardonnay

See Jane Anson’s tasting notes and scores on Bordeaux’s single-variety wines

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