Château Larmande 2018

The 2018 vintage in Saint-Émilion

Vintage benchmark: 96/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: After the mildew, the heat concentrated a small harvest: rich, ripe and very dense wines.

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

Fruity, gourmand nose. Round, spicy palate. The nose shows a very fine expression of red fruits and sweet floral notes (fresh cherry), together with a light thread of liquorice, mint and pepper. The attack is straightforward and lively, leading to an ample, flavourful mid-palate with fine tannins in a tight grain. Light empyreumatic notes bring out the fruity aromas. The finish is long, fresh and dynamic, fully in line with the nose and palate.

The vintage

The winter was cold and rainy, with total rainfall above normal. The spring, mild, cool and very wet, favoured the development of downy mildew. After a late budbreak, vine growth put strong pressure on green work.

This pressure lasted until June, when the weather changed completely: frequent rain gave way to a dry spell, which stopped the mildew. From August and early September, the weather was very dry and hot; the water stress that built up gradually across the vineyard favoured optimal ripening of the berries. Weather conditions at flowering, combined with the drought, produced small bunches and low berry volumes.

The harvest had been expected earlier given the drought, but ripening was slow and gradual, requiring patience until a pretty fruity expression was reached. The ripening conditions give this vintage an assertive structure while preserving a very fine freshness.

Blend of the 2018 vintage

Figures from the 2018 sheet

• 14.5 % vol.Alcohol
• 33 hl/haYield
• 28 yrsVine age

Winemaking

Manual harvesting. Manual sorting. Gravity transfer of the harvest. Parallelepipedal double-walled stainless steel vats, temperature controlled. Malolactic fermentation in barrels for 40% of the harvest. The Château Larmande 2018 blend represents 76% of total production.

Ageing

18 months in French oak barrels and amphoras: 60% new barrels, 30% one-year-old barrels, 10% in amphoras.

Terroir

Limestone and clay, ancient sands, siliceous clay. Hillside vineyard, 1,200 metres from Saint-Emilion.