Château Corbin 2013

The 2013 vintage in Saint-Émilion

Vintage benchmark: 76/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: Coulure decimated the merlots and the rain did the rest: a light vintage, where the gap between terroirs is wider than usual.

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

The tannins of the wood have integrated the wine well and have brought elegance to the blend. As from the initial tastings of the wine, the 2013 has pleasantly surprised by its harmony. The colour is attractive; the nose is fruity and precise; pleasant and delicate. The tannins are in good number and ripe. The wine has very good balance.

Mother Nature is fickle, and the exceptional climatic conditions in the 2013 vintage resulted in a tiny crop. However, thanks to:

- unstinting work, 2 de-leafings, the cutting away of late-ripening bunches,

- constant careful monitoring of the vines for outbreaks of disease threatened by the year’s wet weather,

- an ability to react at high speed in order to bring in the grapes as quickly as possible,

- and the highest-ever quality standards with severe berry sorting and rigorous selection of lots.

Corbin 2013 is a harmonious wine which should be enjoyed within the next 10 years to make the most of its fresh fruit flavour and lovely balance.

The vintage

The 2013 vintage was all about exceptional weather conditions.

After a rainy winter with very little cold weather, followed by fine sunny conditions in March, the vines began budding at the beginning of April and continued to do so in a wonderfully even manner (thanks to very fine April weather), producing the largest potential crop size I have seen at Corbin since my arrival here in 1999.

The young bunches were amazingly large and numerous. The potential crop size was incredible.

Low temperatures in May slowed down vegetation growth, and the flowering process took place 2 to 3 weeks later than normal over several weeks during June in sometimes heavy rainfall and with wide swings of temperature.

Such weather conditions should have resulted in complete fruit setting failure. Miraculously, 20% of the crop pollinated.

Beautiful weather throughout July and August rescued the crop. The vines started shooting at a high rate again in July, and we made up one week’s delay by the end of August. We de-leafed the vines around the fruit and pulled out any non-fruit-bearing lateral vine shoots, as we do every year as from the end of the flowering process.

We were amazingly lucky to escape hail damage from two massive storms that affected the area within one week of each other at the end of July (25th) and beginning of August (2nd). We then carried out a second de-leafing right at the beginning of September to further ventilate the grapes and expose them to sunlight.

Mild wet weather set in at the beginning of September, and autumn arrived with exceptional tropical conditions at the end of September.

As a result, the harvest was brought forward right across the Bordeaux vineyard. Corbin harvested from 28th September to 8th October with an increased number of pickers, a third new sorting table at harvest reception, which enabled us to free up ten pairs of hands and to sort the fruit more meticulously than we have ever done before.

Plot by plot vinification was scrupulously respected so that an even stricter selection of lots was carried out.

Yields were incredibly low at 28hl/ha –the lowest ever at Corbin.

The fermentations went simply with alcoholic degrees around 13. Extractions were excellent, and macerations lasted 3 to 4 weeks depending on the vats.

Blend of the 2013 vintage

Figures from the 2013 sheet

• 13.5 % vol.Alcohol
• 28 hl/haYield
• 30 yrsVine age
• 30,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Hand harvest in small crates from 28th September to 8th October 2013. 2 sortings, destemming, crushing. Cold pre-fermentation maceration. 4 pump-overs per day during alcoholic fermentation. Concrete vats coated with epoxy resin, temperature-controlled. Fermentation temperature: 28°. Vatting period of 20/27 days. Malolactic fermentation in barrels. Pneumatic press. First wine selection: 70% of the crop.

Ageing

100% in French oak barrels with 40% new oak, for 17 months.

Terroir

Clay and clay-sand over an iron-rich clay subsoil.