The Burgundian Bordeaux - The Hottest Wine in the Paris Wine Bar Scene

This is a wine I have been trying to source for over two years now and I finally have gotten it. It is very hard to source because it is one of the hottest wines amongst the Paris wine bar scene. That

wine is the "Burgundian" Bordeaux, the 2011 Chateau Le Puy "Emilien", which can be had for as little as $37.99 a bottle on a 4-pack. While the 2010 I sold two years ago is in a very tight, very closed state and needs 5-8 years to come around, the 2011 is a "vin de pleasure", which is a wine you can drink now with lots of pleasure. Still, hailing from Bordeaux this will also age effortlessly for the next 10-15 years. We all need wines like this. A complex wine to open that will drink well when we need something more than an everyday wine that still won't bust the bank account.
This wine is made like the wines that made Bordeaux the most important wine region in France.  It's just shockingly great; classically structured with beautiful, pure fruit, freshness, elegant tannins and a long finish. It is so giving now as the 2011 vintage is wide open now. The key to this wine and what separates it from almost any other Bordeaux is the freshness (for me the Bordeaux that exhibits the most freshness) of it along with its seductive, silky and Burgundian texture. Oh that texture is something else and gives it that Burgundian nudge. But it is still firmly Bordeaux, albeit from the Cotes de Francs where Merlot is the main grape. This has bittersweet cocoa, chocolate and deep raspberry fruit that is beautifully vivid and pure. There is utmost finesse that lets you know this is no normal Côte des Francs, but something altogether more special and age worthy. This along with Samion are my Bordeaux staples at Fass Selections. I don't sell much Bordeaux but the ones I do sell merit attention as they have the same character of the other Fass Selections wines which is mainly mineral driven, soil driven, acid driven wines that offer tremendous value. This wine has been asked about than almost any other wine I have offered and with good reason as it take as familiar genre/style of wine and completely turns it around by listening to their own way and what results is a distinctive wine unlike anything else in Bordeaux.

You would think this estate is run by some hipster with a skinny tie and mustache, but no, Jean-Pierre Amoreau is a man who wears oxford shirts, chinos and has white hair. He is a patrician and he looks more like the classic idea of a stodgy Chateau owner, but his ethos is actually what is cool and interesting in wine. I applaud him for doing his own thing in a region that is all about outside influences. His son also has a role making the wine.

This wine is not your Parkerized, big, 18% ooze/syrup/jam monster at all. It is around 12-13% alcohol, with the blend being 85% Merlot, 14% Cabernet Franc and 1% Carmenere from vines averaging 55 years of age. It is aged in all old wood and it has no added sulfites at bottling. The vineyard practices are organic/biodynamic which is incredibly rare in Bordeaux where chemical treatments are the norm. They have also been around a very very long time and wines from the 30's, 40's and 50's are still going strong. The terroir is a silica clay soil on a chalk clay subsoil but more importantly it is on the same plain and St. Emilio's and Pomerol which contributes to this being more than just a normal Cotes des Francs.

2011 Chateau Le Puy "Emilien" - $39.99 ($151.96 4-pack) (LIMITED)