The 2017 vintage in Saint-Émilion
Vintage benchmark: 87/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)
Vintage character: Frost struck the slope-foot vines: the plateaus saved the day, and the vintage must be judged plot by plot.
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.
The vintage
Harvest from 21 September to 7 October 2017. Bottling: May 2019. Consulting oenologist: Michel Rolland.
Blend of the 2017 vintage
- 93 % Merlot
- 7 % Cabernet franc
Shares for this vintage, as recorded on the 2017 technical sheet. The vineyard itself is planted with 92 % merlot, 8 % cabernet franc — a vintage blend departs from the area under vine as the year dictates.
Figures from the 2017 sheet
- 36 yrsVine age
Label
Winemaking
Plot selection by terroir, grape variety and vine age. Intra-plot selection using vigour and maturity maps produced with a drone. Harvest by hand in small crates. Sorting on a table before and after destemming by 20 qualified people. Gravity filling of small-capacity wood, stainless steel and concrete tanks (70 hl). Pre-fermentation maceration for 4 to 8 days at 8 °C. Manual punching down only. Maceration of 28 to 32 days for Merlot and 26 to 28 days for the Cabernets.
Ageing
Aged for 16 months: 40% in new barrels, 60% in one-year-old barrels.
Terroir
Château Fombrauge lies on the extension of the plateau and limestone slopes of Saint-Emilion; its large area favours a diversity of soils and exposures that give the wine of Fombrauge its complexity and identity. First, the front line of the main plateau, a relief typical of the Saint-Emilion vineyard on which Fombrauge sits, results from the partial erosion of the Tertiary formations by the rivers that surround it (the Dordogne and the Isle). The structure of this part is mainly composed of Tertiary starfish limestone (calcaire à astéries). The particularly high-quality south-facing slope consists of white clays where the Tertiary formations withstood this erosion. There are perched limestone plateaus, surrounded by slopes on which soft molassic rocks (clay mixed with limestone) outcrop.
An offer on Château Fombrauge 2017
Availability, allocations and terms: the Compagnie Médocaine will reply promptly. The estate and vintage are already filled in in the message.
Texts and documents 2017
The texts below copy in one click for your product sheets, catalogues and social channels. The printable sheet condenses the whole page onto a single A4 page.
Visuals
This wine’s visuals are grouped in the media library. High-definition packshots, labels, back labels and lifestyle photos are reserved for clients and partners, on the Compagnie Médocaine’s VinCod media library.