The 2021 vintage in Saint-Émilion
Vintage benchmark: 85/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)
Vintage character: Frost followed by a cool summer brought back classic wines, lighter and more taut, to be drunk in their youth.
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
Mild and wet autumn, warm and wet winter, cool and rainy spring with frost episodes, cool and wet summer. Harvest: Merlot from 30 September to 7 October, Cabernet Franc from 7 to 18 October. Bottling: spring 2023. Consulting oenologist: Michel Rolland.
Blend of the 2021 vintage
- 85 % Merlot
- 15 % Cabernet franc
Shares for this vintage, as recorded on the 2021 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 2021 sheet
- 23 yrsVine age
Label
Winemaking
Plot selection by terroir, grape variety and vine age. Intra-plot selection using vigour and maturity maps based on NDVI measurements. Harvest by hand in small crates. Sorting on a table before and after destemming. Gravity filling of wood, stainless steel and concrete tanks of 40 and 80 hl. Pre-fermentation maceration for 4 to 8 days at 8 °C. Gentle extraction by pumping over. Malolactic fermentations in new barrels, one-year-old barrels or tanks according to tastings.
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 2021
Availability, allocations and terms: the Compagnie Médocaine will reply promptly. The estate and vintage are already filled in in the message.
Texts and documents 2021
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.