Domaine de Chevalier 2010

The 2010 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 99/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A dry summer and cool nights concentrated small berries: a benchmark vintage, with dense tannins and a thirty-year aging potential.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pessac-Léognan. 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 2010 red wines illustrate the great Bordeaux vintage on both banks, in Merlot and in the Cabernets. It is premature to describe them in detail, but their deep colour, the complexity and intensity of their fruit, their freshness and their tannic density already hint at their enormous potential. Liquid beauty!

The vintage

Profile of a great vintage, which has nothing to envy the fabulous 2009, in white as well as in red. A cool start to spring delayed budbreak slightly, then conditions improved in mid-April and growth was very even. Flowering was rapid. In July, fine hot weather, the vineyard was very healthy. At the end of July and early August, a very clear halt in growth favoured rapid veraison and ripening began. It still did not rain, which contributed to small berries in all varieties. August was dry and bright, but without great heat. An equally dry and radiant September ensured a slow and complete end of ripening for the white varieties. The reds followed and benefited from this wonderful weather, though the berries remained just as small. October arrived, still without rain, with sun and large thermal amplitudes accelerating the phenolic ripening of the reds. The hoped-for rain finally came on 4 and 10 October. Ripening became more precise and the small, tannin-laden berries refined: the estate was ready to harvest. In the end, this long drought without heat produced fruit very rich in sugars and polyphenols, with high acidity. The small size of the berries favoured great natural concentration (high skin-to-juice ratio) but also reduced the yield.

Blend of the 2010 vintage

Figures from the 2010 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 25 yrsVine age
• 100,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

Vatting by gravity, without pumping. Alcoholic fermentation in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats. Manual punching down. Maceration at 30-32°C for 2 to 3 weeks.

Ageing

Aged in barrels for 16 to 20 months.

Terroir

The overall structure of the Chevalier soils takes the form of a layer of black gravelly sand with an average thickness of 60 to 90 cm. Variations in the thickness and depth of the gravel vein create a mosaic of soils that calls for very fine plot-by-plot management, even though the whole shows an evident homogeneity. Overall, these soils are acidic, poor and very free-draining. The very rich subsoil is made up of a clay-gravel base mixed with alios (iron pan), into which the vine roots deeply, thus overcoming the water variations caused by the climate. Vine growth and grape ripening therefore proceed in a remarkably regular manner.