Château Fleur de Lisse 2020

Château Fleur de Lisse is the grand vin of Vignobles Jade in the Saint-Émilion Grand Cru appellation, on the right bank of the Dordogne. Its vines take root at the foot of the slopes, on silty-limestone soils, below the limestone hillsides that have made Saint-Émilion famous. The vineyard is farmed under certified organic agriculture.

This 2020 vintage blends 74% Merlot and 26% Cabernet Franc. The wine is aged for 18 months in large oak vats (foudres), barrels and amphorae, a combination of vessels that brings structure, complexity and purity of fruit alike. This long ageing gives rise to a structured wine that can be enjoyed now or left to age.

This wine reveals notes of blackberry, blackcurrant, black cherry, blueberry, violet, graphite, cocoa and tobacco. The intense black fruit comes with expressive freshness. The structured palate is carried by strikingly velvety tannins and ends on a long, fresh finish.

The cradle of wine culture in Western Europe, France owes its first vines to the Greeks of Phocaea, who settled around Marseille some twenty-six centuries ago, before the Romans spread viticulture along the Rhône and the Garonne and as far as Champagne. In the Middle Ages, Cistercian and Benedictine monks cleared the slopes of Burgundy and patiently mapped out the climats, laying the foundations of the notion of terroir. The 19th century brought the glory of the classifications, then the disaster of phylloxera, which wiped out the vineyards before they were rebuilt on American rootstocks; the creation of the appellations d'origine contrôlée in the 1930s then set the rules that would inspire the whole world. Today, France vies every year with Italy and Spain for first place in world production by volume and remains the ultimate benchmark of the Old World, as much for its age-worthy wines as for its winemaking models. Vineyards cover almost the entire country, from the cool north of Champagne and Alsace to the Mediterranean shores of Languedoc and Provence, by way of the oceanic climates of Bordeaux, the Loire and the South-West, continental Burgundy, the steep slopes of the northern Rhône and the high-altitude valleys of Savoie and the Jura. This mosaic of soils – limestone, schist, gravel or rounded pebbles – explains the extraordinary diversity of styles. As for grape varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot dominate Bordeaux and produce structured reds, Pinot Noir is the signature of Burgundian finesse, Syrah of the depth of the Rhône, while Grenache, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Mourvèdre cover every register, from easy-drinking wines to wines for long ageing. Among the whites, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin, Riesling and Viognier offer expressions ranging from lively and mineral to unctuous, all the way to great sweet wines. A land of benchmarks and constant discoveries, France remains the compass for wine lovers the world over.