Another in a series of Morgan’s dispatches from Bordeaux. Look for part two of yesterday’s post on Wine Sediments later this week.

This morning I awoke to a heavy gloom. Thunderheads bumped shoulders in the distance, darkening the Medoc from Margaux to Pauillac. Deciding to be optimistic I left the skylight to my room open and left to start taking maturity samples of Merlot parcels from vineyards on the southern edge of Pauillac. The swiss, belge, and I had finished one parcel when the sky opened up and it began to let down rain. The precipitation seemed angry to me, but I will always be sensitive to such things when there are so many grapes still on the vine. We took cover inside of the van and waited for the rain the stop. Since it did not stop we went back to the chateau to start testing the lot that we had. It did not stop raining until I had returned to the pond that was now my room and was desperately looking for a stick with which to jam close the open skylight. As it creaked closed, the first rays of sun came out. I saturated two towels with the water on my floor and then went to the laboratory.

The good news is that the Merlot from that one parcel is essentially ready to go. Its has 13.75% potential alcohol and great color. I am a bit disconcerted by some seriously bitter tannin on the finish however. It is not the green bitterness of under-ripe seeds that normally have a dose of pyrazine (bell-pepper) with a varietal like Merlot or Cab, rather, these tannins were like roasted bitter. Like gall. How these end up in the fermenter will be interesting to me since the juice had macerated for a grand total of five minutes when I tasted it. The sulfuric acid as at 3.7, which Nicolas says is in the range that he is looking for.

Since maturity sampling was a lost cause for the day I spend the remainder of the morning watching the last of the Semillon coming in, tasting the first ferments for the Muscadelle crushed last week starting to take place, and wrote some emails to other producers. At quarter until two I left for the town of Margaux.

Margaux, which is about a half-hour south of Pauillac, is as equally famous on Paulliac. Those who own the belle of Margaux, the first growth Chateau Margaux, claim it to be the most famous wine in the world. Though I find this statement suspect, it is certainly true that the wines of Margaux, either from Ch. Margaux or some of the others, are at their oenophilic heights the best in the world. The soils of Margaux are generally the thinnest of the four famous communes, with high proportions of sand and gravel. Just like the more northerly communes of St. Julien, Pauillac, and Saint Estephe, those properties closer to the river tend to have soils that drain easily and have greater depth—a formula for high quality wine production. The drainability of the soil is one of the regions why wines from Margaux tend to be better in years with higher percentages of moisture. That this rather sweeping statement can be made is impressive (and it is not just me that says it), and it is particularly impressive given the size and diversity of the Margaux commune. Most of the great wines are clustered tightly around the city of Margaux, though a good deal of others spread south around the cities of Cantenac and Labarde (where Ch. Margaux has extensive vineyard holdings) and then southwest to the area called Arsac.

My visit for the afternoon was to Ch. Rauzan-Segla, a second growth wine located just inland from Ch. Palmer. Though the chateau has a storied past, the quality had become rather low until Chanel (yes the perfume company) purchased the estate in 1994. The raw materials and clearly there for the creation of fine wine—a huge amount of investment has been made in the cellar and the vineyard, with several lots of vineyard being replanted to varietals better adapted to soil type.

(Merlot vine, note the sandy, brown soils without obvious stones typical of Margaux)

My tour began with a look at the vineyards. Like most chateau in Margaux, Rauzan Segla uses a higher percentage of Merlot than other places in the Medoc. Closer to 25% in most vintages. Merlot here typically adds a plushness of character and the quality of fresh strawberries when young. With age, its suavity and grace can be an integral element in what Hugh Johnson calls “the haunting perfume� of Margaux. The clusters, which typically number 6-8 per vine here, are a little less conical and denser than Cabernet, the berries a little larger, and the average ripeness at picking a little higher.

Part of the investment at Rauzan Segla has been the purchase of double tiered triage trays. The clusters are sorted, and following destemming, the berries are picked over to ensure adequate ripeness. The fruit is than crushed and allowed to flow via gravity into a number of stainless-steel, temperature controlled tanks. Innoculation with yeast takes place immediately, the fermentation takes about a week, and the wine is quickly pressed. Like most other chateau, malolactic fermentation takes place in tank, where the temperature can be more readily adjusted to mediate the feedings of the yeasties (not a technical term).

(Two-tiered triage tables, which during harvest have 30 people working them)

Rauzan uses about 70% new barrels from six different tonnelleries, and recycles their barrels exclusively “in-house� (meaning the one-year old barrels are used for the second wine. Since the guide made sure to point this out it makes me believe that the chateau may have been encountering difficulties with brettanomyces, which is sometimes brought in from other chateau by purchased barrels. (Since I have not used the term before, brettanomyces, or “bret� for short, is a spoilage yeast whose major emissions are the chemicals 4-ethylphenol and 4-ethyguiocal. These chemicals manifest in a “barnyard� smell in a wine, and are essentially the same scents associated with chicken shit. Though in small amounts they are not bad and can even add to a wines character. Ch. Beaucastel and Rayas from Chateauneuf-de-Pape, for instance, are famous for smelling of “complexing� bret. The major problem is that it is almost impossible to control the growth of bret once it is in the bottle and it can often overwhelm all other aromatic elements and leach the fruit from a wine. This is not to say that some people do not like this, as classic Belgium beers such as Leffe are actually inoculated with a bret strain to produce the beers distinctive taste. In Bordeaux, bret has historically been quite common but efforts have been made to curb some of the most egregious cases. The famous saying was that bret was the “gout de terroir� or “taste of the earth,� while in reality it smelled like chicken shit. Alright, enough of this digression.)

Like all estates I visit I have asked about the use of modern methods of winemaking, including must-concentration and micro-oxygenation. The tour guide told me that absolutely no micro-ox is used at Rauzan-Segla. That was very sweet of her, but clearly she normally does not tour with a person who has worked in a cellar before. Not only were there lines in place, but the cellar had built special small tanks for individual small parcels to which the lines were linked. It actually looked like a pretty state of the art system and I wish I could have asked more questions about when and to what lots they use the bubbles, to what degree, etc.. I will perhaps get answers to these questions from another producer.

(no micro-ox?)

In any case, after spending 18 months in barrel, the wines of Rauzan-Segla are bottled. The 2001 I tasted was pretty thoroughly unimpressive. From an acknowledged classic vintage, meaning one that created well balanced, elegant wines more typical for the region than those of the monstrous 2000 and 2003 vintages (those preferred by certain critics we all know), the wine was distinctly lacking in the middle. Unlike some wines that are simply closed-up because of youth, where one can feel the density and stuffing of a wine though the actual flavors are inaccessible, this just seemed rather thin and acidic with tannins too tough for the red fruits. This lack of fruit could also have been a result of the “gout de terroir.� The wine had bret, not seriously but enough to think it was exercising a deleterious effect on the remainder of the wine. Though some of the floral qualities of Margaux were present the wine just seem too finessed for its own good. I was reminded of two sayings from producers from Pomeral and St. Emilion. Christian Mouiex, the proprietor of Ch. Petrus is known for saying that Bordeaux should be all about finesse and delicacy. Jean-Luc Thunevin, the proprietor of Valandraud, says that trying to create finesse makes wine that ends up being not finessed at all. For the 2001 Rauzan-Segla, I wish a little bit more of M. Thunevin’s philosophy had been injected into the wine.

All in all an interesting and educational visit at a gorgeous chateau, but I am sure better wines will be found elsewhere. Until next time!

The 1855 Classification of Margaux

1s Growths
Chateau Margaux

Second Growths
Chateau Brane Cantenac
Chateau Durfort Vivens
Chateau Lascombes
Chateau Rauzan Segla
Chateau Rauzan Gassies

Third Growths
Chateau Boyd Cantenac
Chateau Cantenac Brown
Chateau Desmirail
Chateau Ferriere
Chateau Giscours
Chateau D’Issan
Chateau Kirwan
Chateau Malescot St-Exupery
Chateau Marquis d’Alesme-Becker
Chateau Palmer

Fourth Growths
Chateau Marquis-de-Terme
Chateau Pouget
Chateau Prieure-Lichine

Fifth Growths
Chateau Dauzac
Chateau du Tertre