Château Fombrauge 2023

The 2023 vintage in Saint-Émilion

Vintage benchmark: 92/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: Mildew cost a good share of the harvest; what was brought in is early, fresh and promising.

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

Winter close to ten-year averages, hot and dry spring, summer with normal temperatures and thunderstorms. Harvest from 14 September to 10 October. Bottling: spring 2025. Consulting oenologists: Michel Rolland, Julien Viaud.

Blend of the 2023 vintage

Figures from the 2023 sheet

• 49 hl/haYield
• 24 yrsVine age

Winemaking

Intra-plot selection using innovative tools (NDVI vineyard mapping). Grape selection by hand sorting and optical sorting. Polyphenol extraction adapted to each vat according to terroir origin and daily tasting. Long vatting periods (30 to 35 days).

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.