La Conseillante (Pomerol)

Chateau La Conseillante (Night & Day)La Conseillante, Pomerol
Visiting an estate a second time after several years is an interesting update and for this second visit at La Conseillante we had the chance to be guided by Bertrand Nicolas who is one of the two managers of this family-runned winery (the other being Mrs Marie-France Nicolas d'Arfeuille). Mr Nicolas is a doctor and he shares his time between the winery and his patients. We begin with a walk from the Chateau to the chai across the vineyard where I shot pictures of the vine shoots earlier in the day. He begins with explaining the differences between the soil of La Conseillante, of Petrus and Cheval Blanc. Cheval Blanc on the other side of the road has a majority of Gravel and the rest in clay, with 60% Cabernet and 40% merlot. La Conseillante has the opposite, with 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet. Petrus on the other side, has a 100% clay soil and 100% Merlot. It is no mystery if each grape variety has a specific planting-location, because when planted on the adequate soil, the Merlot or Cabernet vines will express themselves best and it will translate in the wine. He shows us then where the clay vein crosses between two parts of La Conseillante : from the grass road seperating the two plots, we see such a different-looking soil that it looks as if stones had been deliberately trucked onto one of the vineyards. Part of this clay vein that runs through La Conseillante, is composed of a particular element that may have a direct imprint on the wine taste : the "crasse de fer", a red-brownish color type of iron dust. Even if a direct link has yet to be proven, Mr Nicolas says that according to the tradition, the strong violet aroma in La Conseillante wines would be directly linked to the high concentration of iron clay in the soil. Thats why the color of the bottle capsules is purple (violet means also purple color in French) since 135 years at La Conseillante.

3-Year Vines in Front of the FacilityWe walk on the Pomerol plateau, with the cedar of Pétrus in full sight, among vineyard blocks and grass roads that never changed place since the 18th century (at La Conseillante at least). Along the centuries, La conseillante's surface never changed. On the other side, Mr Nicolas points where Vieux Chateau Certan vineyards stand.
As we arrive to the chai, we notice that the Merlot plot that had just been planted in front of the facility when we visited in 2005 has now reached a reasonable size. See the picture on my first-visit-post to compare the size (we also had such a nice weather then). Newly Planted Vines - L'Evangile in the Far There's another plot that has been replanted a month and a half ago after the uprooting of the previous vines which took place 2 years ago. This new vineyard will grow during at least 3 years during which they can't include it in the harvest. After that delay they legally can mix the grapes with the rest of the harvest, but rarely do it before an additionnal growth time. But there is no fixed rules and once, for a plot which is now 9 years old, the 3 first years (4th, 5th and 6th year) permitted to make a great wine of these young vines and it was blended with the other plots.
After the uprooting of the previous vines, this plot had been planted for a couple of years with barley, like the plot in the background which belongs to L'Evangile (the red buildings in the far). The vineyards of La Conseillante, L'Evangile, Pétrus and Cheval Blanc are nearly overlapping each other and a single step make you walk unsuspectedly from one to another no fence or sign being in the way. Phacelia is also sometimes planted on recently-uprooted blocks because it has the particularity to be able to cure the soil from potential diseases that affect the vines, like viruses. Instead of using chemical products that would harm the soil's life, they use other vegetal species with know properties, like barley or wild poppy because they root deep into the ground. Phacelia kills virus-vectors worms like the nematodes. Barley feeds off bad elements in the subsoil and phacelia distills something in the ground that kills off these potentially-harmful nematods. With less of these virus-harboring worms in the soil, the soon-to-be-planted vineyard with get a healthy start which will allow the vineyard managers in turn to avoid the spraying of chemicals. For this new plot, they left the phacelia for 2 years. Ideally the block should not be replanted with vines for 4 years to have a correct disinfection of the soil but this would be a costly investment in regard of the loss of production during that period, and 2 years makes a not-too-bad compromise.
The vathouse : they try to vinify in batches as much as possible and each year brings different volume ratios. For example in 2005, 2006 and 2007 they had exactly the same number of clusters left on the vines but ended up with different volumes at the harvest.La Conseillante Vineyards near Cheval BlancThese vineyards are located on the other side of the paved road which runs along the Chateau of La Conseillante near Catusseau. This road is connecting Libourne to Montagne and we used it too to reach Saint Emilion. A particularity of this large plot is that it is technically located on the Saint Emilion appellation zone, but as it has always been part of La Conseillante, its grapes are vinified as Pomerol. The vineyards in the background are Cheval Blanc's. You can see clearly a stony vein at the surface in foregroundmost part of the plot, one more sign of the complicated and intertwinned nature of the soil here.Bertrand Nicolas in front of the DestemmerBertrand Nicolas explains that this old estate was managed like a small family business until relatively recently : they hired a full-time director, then hired a chai master after having worked on the vineyards and the vathouse. Before that time, they worked with cellar master who was sharing his time with 4 estates. All the other estates around here followed roughly the same evolution in the recent years. Their enologist is Gilles Pauquet who is also the vintner at cheval Blanc. There are basically two schools of vinification, sort of, on the right bank of Bordeaux : Gilles Pauquet and Michel Rolland, each having his own style and virtues. One of the previous vintners of La Conseillante was Emile Peynaud in person, from 1971 to 1980. Emile Peynaud is probably the most central figure among the modern enologists. Emile Peynaud and Jules Chauvet are the enologists and tasters who first discovered the mysteries of vinification and the relations between vinification methods and the taste of wine. They are considered today as the inspirators of natural wine-making. Pump and PressBertrand Nicolas shows us the tools of the sorting stage : first, a vibrating table to eliminate the biggest non-grape elements, pieces of wood, leaves and so on. Then, a sorting table manned by 3/4 people to visually check objects and debris which were not expelled by the 1st vibrating table. Then, the grapes go through this destemmer (2nd pic above) which you can find in very few estates only in the Bordeaux region. This destemmer separates the ripe grapes which will fall on a "grille"inderneath. these ripe grapes will then go through another vibrating machine to eliminate non-grape items. The final check will then be a 6-meter long table where 12 people take care that the selected grapes are perfect. This sorting system is much more efficient than if it was 100% manual. Mr Nicolas who has been overlooking the sorting operations since 1992 says that since they implemented this multi-layer sorting system, they took quite a load of kilograms of leaf or vegetal debris out of each vat in a difficult millesime like (like 2003 in Pomerol). This improved sorting has been crucial to improve the quality of the tannins. He shows us the water temperature control system that they installed in 2001. They had been thinking a lot about this improvement : They wanted to increase the aromatic quality of the wine and they chose to cool the grapes when they arrive at the chai (pre-fermentary cold maceration). With the cooler temperatures, the yeasts are prevented from starting the fermentation too early. This phase lasts 2 to 4 days and then, as they taste the juice from time to time, they let the temperature go up when they feel that unwanted herbal notes surface, and the fermentation begins. He shows us the stainless vats, which were installed beginning in 1971. La Conseillante was the first estate in the Pomerol/St Emilion area with chateau Figeac to install stainless vats. At first the cooling system functionned by letting water run on the outside of the vats, then they used cooling coils, then later they also added a heating system for the unusual cold years.Tools on a CaskThe number of vats is something they are going to work in the near future so that they can properly vinify separately the different batches and vineyard plots. They'll completely remodel the vat part and will have 21 vats at the end of the year instead of 9 today to match their vinifications more precisely with the blocks and batches. We pass near several small size vertical presses. These presses allow a finer pressing than the bigger press that they used before. Depending of the press-wine quality, they choose to add it or not to the rest of the wine.
In the foreground (2nd picture above) you can see a "peristalic pump" which allows a very soft pumping of the wine. Pumping is a delicate issue in a winery as it has been discovered that an inapropriate type of pump can seriously damage the wines. Some vintners even decide to work without pumps and move the wine just by gravity.
About the choice of the casks, it depends of the millesimes : a good millesime will mean the use of 100% new casks and the other years 70% to 80% new casks. They also work with several cooperages (4 or 5) and wood originating from different forests because depending of the batch or the plot they decide after tasting the wines which type of wood or toast is better suited for each: for a given plot which gives a powerful wine they will match the adequate cooperage and type of toast, for another lighter wine they will avoid risking a shock with certain woods, they will just try to soften its tannins and settle their choice on a different type of cask, and these choices are of course reviewed every year.
In march, the chai master prepares some 25 samples for a preliminary tasting. Blending samples are prepared and blind-tasted to foreview the better plot/batch combinations. The people who take part in this crucial tasting are the director Jean-Michel Laporte, Gilles Pauquet (the enologist), the chai master (Patrick Arguti), Mr Bertrand Nicolas and Mrs D'Arfeuille (the owners board), every one saying what he/she likes or not. The resulting wine will be presented as the La Conseillante futures. Of course then the wine is only 5 months old then, compared with the 16-18-months elevage which comes next. That's why they take many precautions to avoid an expected turn in the wine, and that's the full-time job of the chai master. The only filtration they resort to is a single "grille". The wine goes in the cask at the end of the year. The malolactic fermentation is completed in the vats, not in the casks. they tried once to have it completed in the casks but where not convinced about the results 10 months later. Frontpage of RVF's last March Issue : La Conseillante & Pétrus at the TopBertrand Nicolas prepares two bottle samples for a tasting.
__La Conseillante Pomerol 2007. This sample-bottle was filled from a cask 2 days before by chai master Patrick Arguti. This wine will be bottled some time near april 2009. Very nice nose. Vanilla. Suavity. The summer of 2007 was tricky, he says, the weather was not very good for maturation, and 3 weeks before harvest they were almost 2 weeks late on the grape maturity (they kept tasting the grapes and analysing them), and no better weather expected. Then, some sort of late summer fell on the region and in the matter of 10 days the situation turned around. In short, even if it will not be a powerful millesime like 2005 or 2006 (you don't get that every year), they are optimist for the wine. He tells us about 2004 which also had suffered during summer and samely benefited from a beautiful late season. So, this wine will be more on the fruit and freshness than extraction, loke elsewhere in the region. I spoke to the director Jean-Michel Laporte who considers this millesime (2007) as superior to 2002 and 2004 because they could get a bit more volume than in these two years and will keep the nice freshness of 2004's. By the way, 2004 was his first year at La Conseillante and this 2004 wine was considered by some as lacking a bit in the middle-mouth. 2007 having suffered from the same weather handicap than 2004, he adapted his vinification and the type of wood to correct this problem.
__La Conseillante Pomerol 2004. Superb nose. Mouth : lots of smal black fruits. Liquorice, blond tobacco, English gingerbread. Lots of pleasure, very nice. 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet here (may vary a bit every year with the yield-differential between Merlot and Cabernet on given year).
La Conseillante produces 45/60 000 bottles a year and exports 75% of its wine. This year, La Conseillante is producing the 1st edition of its "second wine", named "Duo de Conseillante", but we did not taste it.
La conseillante wines are exported (70%) around the world, in the UK, the US, Canada, Belgium, Holland, Germany and Japan among others.

La Conseillante33500 PomerolPhone +33 5 57 51 15 32contact@la-conseillante.comlaconseillante.com

Comments

[Online casinos]

Hmm.Thanks you for news and site.Very good.

[Eddy Van Goethem]

Yesterday, Feb 28, 2009, I have tasted a Conseillante 1988.
The cork was still ok, only little aging in the color.
The nose still with some fruits, little oak.
Mouth: equilibrum of good tannines and acids, wood tannines have disappeared.
Eddy Van Goethem

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