Bordeaux 2017 at Two Years: St Emilion Premier Grand Cru Classé
I arrived on the right bank late one Tuesday evening, after two days of driving up and down the Médoc peninsula. After holing up for the night in a cheap hotel on the main road which runs below the town of St Emilion, I struck out the next morning just as the sun was struggling to rise above the horizon. My plan for the day consisted of visits to all levels of châteaux, in both St Emilion and Pomerol; in this, the first of two reports on the 2017 vintage in St Emilion, I will focus solely on the premier grand cru classé properties, from (being alphabetical and scrupulously unbiased, as always) Château Angélus to Château Valandraud.
The premier grand cru classé estates naturally possess some of the better terroirs in the appellation; if we divide the landscape of St Emilion into four broad categories (plateau, the côtes and pieds de côtes, the sandy valley floor and the graves) then these highly ranked properties are found positioned on the first, the second (on the côtes, but in some cases extending onto the pieds de côtes) and the fourth of these terroirs. While in any given vintage these highly regarded properties should be capable of producing a great wine, in the frost-riddled 2017 vintage some gained the upper hand through their favourable positions, while others were significantly disadvantaged by theirs. It seems sensible to take a closer look at both ends of the spectrum in this vintage.
The Wines
Perhaps one of the properties most favoured was in this vintage was Château Pavie, which sits on the south-facing Côte de Pavie on the downslope from the plateau. This is clearly an estate located on the côtes, and although the vineyard extends out onto the pieds de côtes and valley floor the fruit of these lower vines is not used for the grand vin. The quality in the 2017 Château Pavie, tasted with estate manager Philippe Develay (pictured), is excellent, the polished fruit and ripe grip seasoned with the floral, graphite and pencil shaving notes of precisely ripe Cabernet Franc. Seemingly protected from the frost by their elevation, the vines of the Côte de Pavie have enjoyed a favourable growing season. This is true of many other estates and wines listed below, with the 2017 Château Pavie-Macquin and 2017 Château Valandraud, among others, providing us with some good examples.
