Château Haut-Pontet, Saint Emilion Grand Cru 2019

Château Haut-Pontet is a stunning property in the northern part of Saint Emilion. Set on varied soils with a warm climate and bordering Pomerol, it is a spectacular site that allows for beautifully ripe fruit, complex aromas and a refined structure while remaining approachable and hugely enjoyable, vintage after vintage.

Owned and produced by our friend Jean-Philippe Jannoueix, it is a wine that shows a slightly different side of Saint Emilion than many are used to, as its structure is elegant and refined rather than dense or jammy, allowing for its perfumed nose and silky roundness to shine out of the glass. Full of ripe, red fruit flavours and integrated spices, the palate really sings giving its aromatic charm with abandon. 

This is a Saint Emilion Grand Cru that is worthy of celebration and collection showing classy appreciation of traditional classic style with the methodology and technical experience of the 21-st Century. The combination of the two is wonderful - and typical of a wine from this wonderful, understated chap.

This 2019 vintage is a real stunner. An unashamedly ripe and fruity vintage, it is full of blackberry, strawberry and plum flavours in the core, decorated by tobacco and cedar spices. The structure is just wonderful as the wine seems to melt - miraculously - out of the palate. An outstanding pairing for roast cuisine, but also charcuterie and mature cheeses too. 

The vines at Haut-Pontet have an average age of 42 years and are planted in dense rows of 6,666 vines per hectare at the border with Pomerol on a small site measuring 7.34 hectares, the vines have an average age of 42 years and are planted in dense rows of 6,666 vines per hectare with an interesting plantation regime with 71% Merlot, 27% Cabernet Franc and 2% Cabernet Sauvignon. These grapes grow on a mixture of clay, limestone and gravel soils. However, most of the time it is made with between 85 and 95% Merlot and the remainder Cabernet Franc. At proportions like these, the wine is technically allowed to be labelled as 100% Merlot, but the detail is so important in this appellation because the nuance given by differing component parts elevate the wine from what could easily be a generic Bordeaux red to something of extreme elegance and excellence, as is the case here.

But there is more: not only are the component parts of such quality and interest, but the the knowledge and expertise that Jean-Philippe is able to impart, makes the execution at this estate set the wine quality into a different orbit. There are countless properties across the Bordeaux appellation whose potential quality has never been approached, let alone reached, on account of many factors: costs, understanding of land, methods of farming, winemaking, even the grape varieties that are planted.. and it can sometimes take the presence of someone like Jean-Philippe to perform the alchemy needed. 

Aged in combination of oak barrels and concrete tanks (75% and 25% respectively), this provides oak structure and flavours, with a soft, smooth and rich mouthfeel from the concrete. The 225-litre barrels, or barriques, come from all over France - Demptos, Darnajou, Remond and Radoux, and Jean-Philippe even has 500-litre barrels from the incredible (and incredibly expensive) Stockinger in Austria.

It's a slightly shorter ageing than for its sibling neighbour La Confession, with the wine spending 6 months in total on its lees, before blending and bottling and a further 18 months in the cellar. The wine is unfined and sees a very, very light fining.

Jean-Philippe is the fourth generation of the Janoueix family to be in the wine business. The family originated from the region of Correze to the east of Bordeaux and Bergerac and just south of the oak forests of Limoges, famed for their barrel-making timber. 

Jean Janoueix established a wine business in Bordeaux in 1867 and his son, Joseph, was the instigator of the plan to buy their own grapes, which then became vineyards and then properties, with Château La Croix Saint Georges and Château la Croix in Pomerol and Saint Emilion respectively in the 1930s. His son Jean-François was to continue this growth with significant purchases during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. our man Jean-Philippe joined his father in 1994 with his first vintage, and his own plans, purchasing Chatea Chambrun in Lalande de Pomerol. he turned this property into the benchmark for quality in Lalande before selling it in 2007. This interestingly seems to be a very normal practice of trading, investing and re-investing in properties to renew and replenish ones portfolio. Not quite the world in which we live, but that's ok too...