Berliquet - Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2018
Note from Nicolas Audebert :
"The 2018 already bears the stamp of a vintage with two faces because the weather over the year went from one extreme to another. For us at Berliquet, it has all the excitement of the new adventure, the marathon project, one that we truly believe in, despite the fact that we already know that there will be ups and downs along the way!
When we acquired the property in 2017, our team made it a point of honour to hone its knowledge of this exceptional site. Because a wine is made in the vineyards, gaining command of the vineyards and its various different plots and getting to know the plant material were our immediate priorities. Very soon, we had come to the conclusion that, with a very careful management of the vines, Berliquet’s extraordinary terroir (which differs slightly from that of Canon with its stronger clay imprint) was a solid basis on which to build a unique and distinctive wine that was just asking to be revealed.
Thus, over the past year and a half, the wine growers have been ready to get down to the precision work in the 10 hectares of this outstanding terroir. All the soils have been ploughed, by horse on the steeper plots, and the height of the trellising reviewed. The main objective, particularly for this first vintage, was to identify each grape variety individually, vine stock by vine stock, in each of the vineyard plots, because perfect maturity, especially for a vintage like the 2018, cannot be achieved at the same time for a young Cabernet as for an old Merlot. ‘Micro-vats’ were installed and these, with the meticulous work carried out in the vineyards, have enabled us to carry out intra-plot vinifications. Our gentle extraction work has resulted in dense juices with plenty of character. Our quest for precision will continue in the cellar. For a year now, we have been selecting barrels with fine, delicate tannins that preserve the balance between structure and fruit.
Although this technical finetuning is only just starting, Château Berliquet is already revealing an elegant 2018 wine, one in which the terroir stamp of the clay slopes is carefully balanced with the minerality of the Saint-Emilion limestone plateau. Its attack is warm with pronounced aromas of yellow stone fruit, such as ripe apricots and fine, delicately-fleshed peaches. The harmony continues in a lovely tension; a deep-rooted minerality that runs through the wine over the palate. Fresh notes of cedar adorn the ‘third movement’. This sappy stamp reveals the character of the cru. A play of different layers in chiaroscuro with fascinating contrast and evolution…
Today, more than ever, we truly believe that the very essence of the great terroirs comes from their ability to produce flawless wines, whose structure and finesse defy the passing years. The 2018 vintage, the first to come out of our new adventure at the helm of Berliquet, is the promising first expression of our ambitions."