Bordeaux 2015 Primeurs: Château Tertre Roteboeuf
I have to confess, I am making life a little difficult for myself by beginning here with François Mitjavile and Château Tertre Roteboeuf. With most other visits, there is a technical story on which it is usually very easy to report. The Merlot was picked on such-and-such a date, the Cabernets on another date. There are percentages to be noted down, both the varieties in the blend, and how much alcohol there is in the wine.
At Château Tertre Roteboeuf, however, so much of this feels rather superfluous and a touch vague. This is artisanal winemaking. The cellars feel artisanal, and are very atypical among the big names of Bordeaux. The closest match was probably the old cellars under the house (now long demolished) at Le Pin, where Jacques Thienpont also had a similarly freehand style when it came to winemaking. The cellars are slightly cramped (especially when you have a few visitors in there, which is certainly always the case whenever I visit), dimly lit (I find myself tasting by the light of my laptop, which I perch precariously on a tiny shelf in one corner) and after tasting your crachoir is the drain in another corner of the cellar.
The winemaking recipe doesn’t really change. François picks when the fruit has ripened to the point where the skins are just showing a little degradation, something which I believe comes through in the character of the wines, although I don’t pretend to understand exactly how and why François Mitjavile’s wines taste the way they do. The vineyard is 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc, and so is the blend of the finished wine, because everything is picked and everything goes into the grand vin, with no rejected fruit for a second wine, reflecting his ‘cru’ philosophy. The fermentation takes place in cement cuves, the wine assembled, and then it is run off into barrel. It was from these barrels that I tasted.
