Château Angélus: Wines
The fruit is picked by hand with an aggressive sorting in the vineyard, the table de tri having first been placed out in the vines in the 1986 vintage. Then it is destemmed at the chai, before a second sorting. Destemming is the norm in Bordeaux, as the accepted wisdom is that the stems of Cabernet Franc and Merlot do not benefit the wine, because they don’t ripen adequately, and bring green flavours, as evidenced by experiments at Château Margaux. Having said that, some estates do add stems when they have ripened adequately, and the search for freshness in warmer vintages has inevitably led many to look again at he use of steams in Bordeaux, and but let’s not get sidetracked into a stems debate. The usual practice at Château Angélus is to destem by machine, but from the 2009 vintage onwards Hubert de Boüard de Laforest has been destemming a large proportion of his harvest by hand. In 2009 a team of 60 workers destemmed about 20% of the harvest, a figure that rose to 50% in 2010, the task undertaken by an enlarged team of 150 people.
Once destemmed the fruit is then sorted again using optical technology. The fruit is then transferred by conveyor belt into the fermentation vessels which includes a mix of oak, concrete and stainless steel, one-third each; Hubert feels that the use of all three materials brings a greater harmony to the wine, giving it tannin, fruit and freshness. In more recent years there is also an increasing use of foudres for the Cabernet Franc (and having tasted the pure Cabernet Franc from foudre in the cellars in the 2022 vintage, which was quite brilliant, I think this is a good development). There is a cold maceration of up to five days before fermentation gets started, the latter controlled to between 28ºC and 32ºC.
Once complete, the wine is run off into barrel and then undergoes malolactic fermentation, no doubt spurred on by warming the cellar (that is usually the case), and the subsequent élevage will last for 22 months. From 2018 the team here have been running a trial of amphorae as well, and it was about this time that the aforementioned foudres were installed. Protective sulphites are used, although it is said to be in a ‘minimal’ manner, although is there a domaine that claims anything else? A little lees stirring has also reportedly long been a feature of the élevage here, although I have not seen this for myself.
