Red
2021
SAINT-ÉMILION GRAND CRU
PREMIER GRAND CRU CLASSÉ
FAMILLE CUVELIER
Varietal blend
90% Merlot
7% Cabernet Sauvignon
3% Cabernet Franc
Alcohol by volume
13,5°
Quantity produced
55 000 bottles
Size of the vineyard
20 ha
Average age of vines
35 years old
Grape varieties
84% Merlot,
9% Cabernet Franc
7% Cabernet Sauvignon
Soil type
Clay-Limestone
Vineyard skills
We have for a great many years been practising sustainable viticulture, caring for the natural balances of the environment. We get the Certification on "High environmental value" in 2020
Yields in hls/ha
40 hls/ha
Vinification
NC
Maturing/ageing : 50% new barrels - 48% second-fill barrels - 2% amphoras - 14 to 18 months ageing in underground rock cellars
Owner's words
The 2021 vintage of Clos Fourtet takes us back a few years with a return to a clasicism - the kind that built the renown of the finest Bordeaux wines. The 2021 growing season included a mix of tricky periods (having to fight against spring frosts and exceptional downy mildew pressure) and smoother phases (homogeneous budding and flowering, a quite dry summer with no extreme heat, and a god ripening period enhanced by 4 weeks of fine weather). In a less than favourable context, the capacity of our limestone soils to manage excess rainfall and bring about qualitative water constraints in the vines enabled Clos Fourtet to produce very high quality grapes. 2021 proved to be a year of terroir, tireless efforts in the vineyad, team cohesion and patience. We had to be ever-present in the vines, and able to anticipate and react quickly. All this hard work bore fruit. We succeeded in maintaining our yield objectives and were able to wait patiently until the very last days of September to begin the harvest! In order to round off the process and rebalance the ratio between skins and juice, we carried out saignées, bleeding 20% of the juices from the vats. The resulting wines showed balance, great aromatic freshness and a high quality tannic structure - the hallmark of great Bordeaux!