Anson: Tasting St-Emilion’s Château Chauvin back to 1998

I should have been starting to taste the Bordeaux 2019 en primeur wines this week, but as with every single one of us, plans have taken something of a curve.

I will be tasting barrel samples as soon as feasible, and have already begun where deliveries to my house are safe and possible.

In the meantime, there has never been a better excuse for getting wines out of your cellar. No, excuse is the wrong word. There has never been a better reason to crack open a bottle that looks inviting.

Vertical tastings like this are now a form of connection, as well as being interesting and useful.

Scroll down for Jane Anson’s Château Chavin vertical tasting notes and scores

I wanted to start this particular series of vertical therapy with an estate that does not always receive the biggest headlines in St-Emilion.

Yet, it makes a brilliant classified wine and is located in a corner of the appellation that I seriously rate, over by Pomerol and next to the Corbin plateau.

It’s a different style of terroir to much of St-Emilion, notably due to the absence of limestone. The focus is instead on gravel, clay and sand, making powerful wines that age brilliantly.

Chauvin has been ranked as a Grand Cru Classé since the first outing of this list in 1955.

It has also seen a number of changes in recent years. The Ondet family, which had been in place since 1891 and was most recently represented by sisters Béatrice and Marie-France, sold the estate in 2014.

The owner today is Sylvie Cazes, a legendary figure in Bordeaux who has been at various times both president of the Union de Grands Crus and director of Château Pichon Comtesse de Lalande. She is also the younger sister of Jean-Michel Cazes and part-owner of Lynch-Bages in Pauillac.

Cazes is also owner of Le Chapon Fin restaurant in Bordeaux and on the board of advisors for the Cité du Vin cultural museum. Alongside that, she runs a wine tourism company, Bordeaux Saveurs. Those are all things that have been hit hard and closed down ‘until further notice’ by the current crisis. All the more reason, then, to pull out a bottle of Chauvin from the cellar.

Château Chauvin fact file

Grand Cru Classé since: 1955

Classified area of vines: 14.86ha

Unclassified area of vines: 1.36ha

Owner: Sylvie Cazes

Consultant: Michel Rolland

Technical director: Jérémie Gravier

HVE Level 3 certified since: 2018

*HVE, or ‘Haute Valeur Environnementale’, is a government-backed sustainability scheme for French agriculture. 

The wines in this tasting

The vertical covered wines from 2019, which I will release separately with other en primeur notes, all the way back to 1998. It included every vintage back to 2009, except for the 2017, when frost meant no production.

It also included three exceptional older vintages for St-Emilion; 2005, 2001 and 1998.

Since Cazes’ arrival there have been a few obvious changes. The label, for one, has given new life to an image last used in 1929.

In 2014, the team also added a permanent second wine, Folie de Chauvin, which replaced two earlier versions of a second wine that were only used occasionally.

In most years, Folie de Chauvin accounts for around 30% of total production. The grapes are taken largely from the sandier sections of the vineyard, and young vines.

In the vineyard, studies carried out since 2014 have allowed more accurate plot work. The team has tracked soil resistivity and vine vigour through the growing season, among other things.

Planting density has been raised from 6,000 vines per hectare (ha) to 8,600, and new plantings will see the size of the estate go from 13.5ha in 2009 to 16.2ha by 2022.

The technical team has changed, too, most notably with the arrival of Jérémie Gravier, who worked previously with Miguel Torres in Spain and Mouton Rothschild in Pauillac.

Other changes you find in the glass, most notably an increase in Cabernet Franc. The 2019 used twice as much as some older vintages.

You’ll also see a revival of Cabernet Sauvignon in the first wine. It tends to hover at around 5% of the blend but makes a huge difference to the taste profile, producing a wine that seems to chime with Cazes’ Left Bank sensibilities.

See Jane Anson’s Château Chavin vertical tasting notes and scores

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