Château Canon 2024

The 2024 vintage in Saint-Émilion

Vintage benchmark: 87/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A difficult flowering and a wet summer reduced the harvest: light, aromatic wines, to be drunk early.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Saint-Émilion. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

A floral palette of crimson, with violet, lilac and rose petals. Then comes the red of summer fruit: strawberries, raspberries and juicy watermelons. Green finds its way in airy touches: rosemary, mint and blackcurrant buds, as if stolen from a Sauvignon. Altogether vibrant and enveloping. Texture and tension in a single stroke. Sapid energy with a lingering saline finish, the signature of the limestone terroir.

The vintage

Weather conditions

Winter: mild and rainy

Spring: cool from mid-April, frequent rainfall

Summer: summery weather from the end of July

Autumn: damp and cool

Harvest dates

Merlot: 19 September to 1 October

Cabernet Franc: 1 to 9 October

pH: 3.35

Blend of the 2024 vintage

Figures from the 2024 sheet

• 13.5 % vol.Alcohol
• 44 hl/haYield
• 60,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Separate vinification, vatting using gravity, into conical shaped stainless steel vats with a double walled system for temperature control. Gravity run-off. Malolactic: 1/3 in new barrels and 2/3 in stainless steel vats.

Ageing

In French oak barrels, with medium or medium-long toasting.16 to 18 months - 49% new oak, 6% foudres

Racking via the bunghole

Terroir

Château Canon occupies a south-west-facing limestone terrace that makes up most of its surface area. A quarter of the estate lies on the slope of this hillside, which descends gently towards the Dordogne. This imposing mass of sedimentary rock is criss-crossed by numerous galleries, evidence of the quarrying of this building material since the 16th century. The site, which peaks at 87 metres, benefits from perfect ventilation and a walled enclosure that protects the vines from spring frosts. This setting allowed the château to be among the few estates to produce wine during the severe cold of 1766 and 1956.