Taking exciting new directions: 10 Bordeaux producers to watch

Take 2,000 years of winemaking, throw in some French bureaucracy, and you can see why it’s easy to get the impression that things move pretty slowly in Bordeaux.

It’s not true, of course. It’s almost impossible to keep up with the number of changes that happen here every year. Let’s just take it from January 2019 until today.

Scroll down to see Jane Anson’s 10 exciting producer write-ups, wine tasting notes and scores

At a very quick glance, I could talk about the arrival of Australian giants Treasury Wine Estates, owner of Penfolds, with the purchase of Château Cambon La Pelouse.

Or the sale of two classified Margaux estates: Château Cantenac Brown, from British businessman Simon Halabi to Frenchman Tristan Le Lous; and Château Dauzac, from French insurance group MAIF to Breton businessman Christian Rolleau.

Or even another Margaux, in the shape of Château La Tour de Mons going from CA Grands Crus to the Perrodo family of Château Marquis d’Alesme.

On a winemaker level, there was movement from Château Haut-Bailly in Pessac-Léognan over to St-Emilion’s La Dominique for Yann Monties, and from Château Clerc Milon down the road to Mouton Rothschild for Jean-Emmanuel Donjoy.

The next few years will see another round of changes, from new restaurants at Château Réaut in Cadillac Côtes de Bordeaux and at Troplong Mondot in St-Emilion, to the stunning new cellars due to open at both Lynch-Bages and Haut-Bailly.

There’s even a super-glamorous 82-room Baccarat hotel due to open in a 60ha château just outside Bordeaux city in 2022. All of which makes it difficult to pick just 10 estates to sum up the recent changes, but the following are a good place to start…

Château Fonplégade

St-Emilion GCC

Classified St-Emilion estates are often the place to discover the spirit of innovation in Bordeaux, perhaps because the ranking is redone every 10 years (with the next round due in 2022), which encourages winemakers and owners to keep pushing forward.

Château Fonplégade, owned by American couple Denise and Stephen Adams, is an excellent example of this, showing just what can be done with an open mind.

They arrived at the property in 2004 and immediately stopped all chemical treatments in the vines. This was followed by an introduction of organic and then biodynamic farming, achieving full certification in both as of 2019.

A visitor today will find chickens and sheep among the vines, a vegetable and flower garden and all of the biodynamic preparations made on-site. The wine has improved right alongside, showing the same sense of energy that you can feel in the team.

www.fonplegade.com

Clos Dubreuil

St-Emilion

Non-AP grape varieties are having a moment in Bordeaux right now, and this estate was one of the first on board, with a Chardonnay launched back in 2013, which is bottled as Vin de France.

The man behind the estate is Benoît Trocard, a dynamic owner who fell in love with Chardonnay while working in Australia in the early 2000s.

Today, he’s not the only Chardonnay enthusiast in the area; he’s been joined by Château La Gaffelière in St-Emilion (with a Chardonnay due in a few years) and Château Thieuley in Entre-Deux-Mers.

www.closdubreuil.fr

Château Gombaude-Guillot

Pomerol

The Laval-Techer family has owned Château Gombaude-Guillot since 1866, but it has welcomed a new (sixth) generation in the form of Olivier Techer.

The producer is one to follow, certified organic since 2000 and now farming entirely biodynamically, having applied recently for full Biodyvin certification. The family is also doing an excellent job of bringing Bordeaux to a new generation with the brilliantly named Pom ‘n’ Roll, an unusual blend of 50/50 Merlot and Malbec. You’re going to love these wines.

www.chateau-gombaude-guillot.fr

Château des Annereaux

Lalande-de-Pomerol

Bordeaux often champions big-name wine consultants, so it’s refreshing to see new ones coming through, and even more so when they choose to work with producers in lesser-known corners of the region.

Axel Marchal is a professor at the ISVV (Institute of Vine and Wine Science). In the great tradition of Emile Peynaud, Pascal Ribéreau-Gayon and Denis Dubourdieu, he has begun to head outside the classroom to consult for a select few Bordeaux estates.

This one, with 23ha of clay and sandy soils in Lalande-de-Pomerol, was his first client, and it’s an estate that I am increasingly excited about.

Organic since 2007, Château des Annereaux is one of the oldest family ownerships in Bordeaux, with the Hessel family able to date its ancestors back to 1390, a whopping 630 years.

Today, Benjamin Hessel is in charge, bringing a real burst of new energy and excitement. He’s pushing ripening a little further than his father did, and deepening the flavour profile through techniques such as removing leaf cover (partially, on the eastern side of the estate) to encourage concentration. And he has also pulled a few clever marketing tricks, such as sending an email in 2018 to French president Emmanuel Macron on the subject of the ongoing impacts of regular and severe weather incidents, notably devastating hail – which resulted in the Elysée Palace stocking up on several cases of des Annereaux.

www.annereaux.com

Château Fourcas Dupré

Listrac-Médoc

Listrac is the smallest appellation in the Médoc, and is an interesting place to watch for changes in Bordeaux, not least in the production of white wine (which is bottled here as AP Bordeaux Blanc).

Fourcas Dupré has been making an excellent white since 2013. It changed hands in 2019 from the Pagès family, owners since 1970, to Breton entrepreneur Gérard Jicquel of outsourcing company Samsic (his co-founder in Samsic is the same Christian Roulleau who last year bought Château Dauzac, so this is clearly a company with ambition in wine).

The estate also has an extremely talented new technical director in the shape of Lucas Leclercq, previously at Château Lafon- Rochet in St-Estèphe.

One to watch.

www.fourcasdupre.com

Domaine Uchida

Haut-Médoc

A new arrival with a twist. Although the grapes are planted in a remote corner of the Médoc surrounded by pine forest, the winery itself is in the village of Le Pouyalet in Pauillac, literally in a garage just a stone’s throw from Château Mouton Rothschild.

The man behind this is Osamu Uchida, a Japanese winemaker who was born in Hiroshima and has been in France for 20 years. He first studied in Bordeaux, then worked in cellars and wineries across Banyuls, Savoie, Côte-Rôtie, Côte de Provence, Rivesaltes, the Loire, and in Bordeaux for Domaine de Chevalier and Château Poujeaux.

This is small-scale biodynamic winemaking at its best. The grapes are trodden by foot in barrel, destemmed by hand and fermented at low temperatures with natural yeasts; there is no racking, and the wine is aged for one year, then bottled with no fining or filtration.

Instagram @domaine_uchida

Closerie Saint Roc

Vin de France

Cult winemaker Château Le Puy has a new estate in the family, and it’s worth getting on board now. Closerie Saint Roc is located just next to Le Puy (literally a five-minute walk), but over the border from Francs Côtes de Bordeaux in Puisseguin St-Emilion.

While the estate was purchased in 2013, no wines were bottled until 2015, when organic certification was received. The plan now is to bottle wines from the four different soil types separately, so following the Burgundian model of climats; we should see these arrive over the next few years.

‘We couldn’t do terroir-bottling under Bordeaux rules, but are freed up by Vin de France,’ says owner Jean-Pierre Amoreau. The existing team at Le Puy uses biodynamic farming methods with natural yeasts, no added sulphur and ageing in decades-old oak barrels before bottling unfiltered and unfined.

‘We are looking at Saint Roc as our research centre, trying out rare grape varieties, leaving the soil in permaculture, adding agroforestry and a few other projects,’ Amoreau adds.

A new story is being written here.

www.closeriesaintroc.com

Clos Manou

Médoc

Stéphane Dief is a breath of fresh air in Bordeaux. He didn’t inherit his winery, and it’s not in a prestigious appellation, yet he has become one of the most exciting cult producers on the Médoc peninsula.

He worked as a salesman for a local cooperative cellar before first renting and then slowly buying vines as they became available and as he could afford them.

His vineyard holdings are made up of tiny plots that together add up to 18ha – and you can tell his obsessive attention to detail when you see them trained a little lower to the ground than the neighbouring plots, stakes perfectly aligned, rows far closer together than is usual in the area, invariably at 9,000-10,000 vines per hectare.

He bottles two main wines: Clos Manou itself and second wine Petit Manou. Both are not to be missed.

www.clos-manou.com

Château Lafaurie- Peyraguey

Sauternes 1CC

Wine tourism has grown hugely in Sauternes over the past few years, from the restaurant at Château Guiraud, to tree-top wine tasting at Rayne Vigneau and yoga sessions at Climens. But Lafaurie-Peyraguey is the daddy of all these destinations.

You see it as soon as you walk through the 13th-century entrance to the beautifully trimmed lawns in front of the 17th-century château, which has now been turned into a stunning hotel, restaurant and boutique.

If you still need convincing, ask to see the crystal barrel produced in 2018 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the château’s creation – a nod to the owner Silvio Denz, who is also president and director general of the famous crystal firm that was founded by René Lalique.

www.chateau-lafaurie-peyraguey.com

Château de la Vieille Chapelle

Bordeaux Supérieur

Rare grape varieties are also having a moment in Bordeaux, led by the now famous work of Loïc Pasquet at Liber Pater (€30,000 a bottle anyone?). You can find the same idea at considerably less expense over at Château de la Vieille Chapelle, located by the Dordogne river close to Fronsac on the Right Bank.

Back in 2009, owners Frédéric and Fabienne Mallier used DNA analysis to identify the Bouchalès grape among others on a small plot of non-grafted, 19th-century vines. The duo have plans to plant others and release the wines as separate bottlings, but for now, if you can track some down, try their C’Est Bon Le Vin bottling, which is 65% Bouchalès, 25% Merlot and 10% other rare Bordeaux grapes.

www.chateau-de-la-vieille-chapelle.com

See Jane Anson’s exciting producer wine tasting notes and scores

This article was first published earlier this year in Decanter’s Bordeaux 2020 supplement without accompanying tasting notes. The below list of one wine per estate are the most recently tasted by Jane Anson excluding Domaine Uchida which Jane has only so far tasted barrel samples. 

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