2014 Chateau Fleur Cardinale Grand Cru Saint Emilion

As soon as they arrived in 2001, Florence and Dominique decided to keep the team that had been working there for several years and surround themselves with knowledgeable advisers: an agricultural engineer, an oenologist and their neighbor Jean-Luc Thunevin, the owner of Château Valandraud, who is now the estate’s general consultant. Aware of the potential improvements that could be made to the estate, they together defined priority investments in the vineyard, including uprooting the plots that did not meet their standards and reducing yields. They acquired new equipment and soon decided to build a new winery, inaugurated in 2002, allowing them to carry out plot-by-plot fermentation and ensure the traceability of each batch. These strategic decisions earned Château Fleur Cardinale the rank of Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classé in 2006.

The vineyards of Château Fleur Cardinale span nearly 23.5 hectares. The estate is located in the village of Saint-Etienne-de-Lisse, in the eastern part of the Saint-Émilion appellation. The estate borders Château Valandraud, a Premier Grand Cru Classé B.

Tasting notes: Red Wine. The wine has a rich and crisp structure with ripe tannins, refined oak which melts into an explosion of fruit. It has the opulence and length of a Saint-Estèphe fine wine. Thanks to the appellation’s limestone-clay subsoils, its power is balanced out by a wonderful sensation of freshness.