Château La Renaissance, Pomerol, 2018

Pomerol is one of the world's mythic wine regions; small yet full of incredible quality, tradition and a price range from expensive to stratospheric to intergalactic. 

This is a brilliant example with endless international accolades.

With an inviting nose of dark berries, spice and notes of purple and red flowers, La Renaissance leads to a palate that is dense and elegant, complex and structured, with blackcurrant flavours and beautifully integrated spice notes of vanilla and ginger. Such a smooth and accomplished wine, the well-rounded and sumptuous palate delivers a warm, long-lasting finish.

A blend of 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc, this is a more structured wine than some of the other properties the de Lavaux family have, on account of the higher portion of Cabernet Franc. It is grown in vineyards that alternate sandy soils with unusual patches of pure pebbles allowing for drainage when needed during rainy vintages. The site is small at only 6 hectares, but the size means that everything is perfectly controlled and managed entirely by hand, hence the consistency of the international renown for this wine. After fermentation in concrete tanks (that really increase the soft, velvet texture) it is aged for 18 months in oak barrels, half and half - new and first-use. But because of the vintage and its development, there is a delicious, weighty ease to the wine that is now at a plateau showing secondary evolvement in a velvet-like delivery.

This wine is made at Château la Renaissance, which is run and owned by the Pradel de Lavaux family. They own numerous properties in this cluster of appellations in the right bank of Bordeaux. They are specialists in Merlot and Cabernet Franc and, in fact, only grow these two varieties in any of their estates.

Dedication to quality and a continuous family history dating back to 1740, mark out the success of this wine-making family. They manage business on several fronts, with vineyard management, wine-making and production in one area, with a brokerage wholesale and trading section on the other hand. This spreading of interests means that they stay very much in with the business of business as well as just being really good producers who happen to have a collection of seriously hot Châteaux. The negociant business is very useful for us in dealing with them as they can often have hidden gems that they may have bought from other wineries and not sold through - a bit like me! 

The history is only a feature however, as families can come and go; the dedication and constant nourishment of a singular vision is what is most impressive and has to have been established with some strength in order to have survived numerous wars, revolution, changes in fashion, climate change and still remain in tact, which it has done since the family began... twelve years before Mozart was born.