Château de Fieuzal: Tasting & Drinking
Although there are a number of Pessac-Léognan estates where I have tasted back through the decades, tasting older vintages than I have with Château de Fieuzal, I have nevertheless probably known the wines of Fieuzal for much longer than I have these other estates. This is because almost by chance I discovered the estate and its wines in the 1990s, chancing first upon the white before I subsequently encountered the red, and this was long before I was to become more thoroughly acquainted with the likes of Domaine de Chevalier or Château Brown.
Indeed, I think it is probably fair to say that for many years it was for me the white wine which was the real draw here, despite it having been for many years a niche interest, a wine which was not even submitted for consideration in the 1959 classification. This is reflected in the price, which in many vintages has been as much as 50% higher than the red. The reds have often been described as having a rather robust character, as they were by Clive Coates in The Wines of Bordeaux (University of California Press, 2004) when he wrote of Fieuzal rouge as “a bigger, sturdier wine than most Graves…..a bit hard in its youth” before noting that when young they tend to lack finesse. I would agree with him on these points.
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