It’s always exciting when a new vintage of Château Le Puy arrives. It’s been nearly a decade since Neal Rosenthal started importing this idiosyncratic and genuinely artisanal estate, and the wines have gone from obscure... Read More
It’s always exciting when a new vintage of Château Le Puy arrives. It’s been nearly a decade since Neal Rosenthal started importing this idiosyncratic and genuinely artisanal estate, and the wines have gone from obscure to coveted, a product of not just their incredible fidelity to low-intervention winemaking and organic farming, but also the sheer consistency of quality every vintage.
For the uninitiated, Le Puy’s terroirs lie in the Côte de Francs, a small AOP on the same plateau of clay and limestone as nearby Saint-Emilion. The estate has been around since 1610, and has been farmed naturally the whole time, never subjected to synthetic treatments.
One of the most interesting things about Le Puy’s wines is how much they taste like classic Right Bank Bordeaux (especially with age), but with energy and lift that sets them apart. We wish some of the more exalted names on the right bank would take a page from Le Puy’s book!
Long-time readers will know today’s cuvée well: the easy-drinking Ducs de Nauves and Emilien, Le Puy’s flagship wine.
Emilien is aged two years in large, century-old oak foudres. We’ve enjoyed remarkable bottles with significant age; a 1975 we tasted about 8 years ago was spectacular. But the wine also drinks well on release, provided you decant it a few hours and have it with food. It’s substantial but freshly styled, with notes of dried cherries, leather, herbs and damp earth.
Ducs is maybe the most charming wine in all of Bordeaux. It’s built to be drunk on release – aged just a year in cement – and tastes like a hypothetical cross between a Saint-Emilion and a Brouilly. Juicy, sure, but not exactly simple.
