Wine Review: Chateau La Dominique Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Classe 2021

For today’s tasting Wine-Searcher’s Wine Director, David Allen MW tastes a Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé from the 2021 vintage. The wine in question is Chateau La Dominique.

Château La Dominique is an estate in Saint-Émilion known for its Merlot-based red wine. It was rated Grand Cru Classé in the official 1955 classification of Saint-Émilion.

Located close to the Pomerol border, the vineyard covers approximately 29 hectares (71 acres). The majority of plantings are Merlot (89 percent) with small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon and an addition of Malbec in 2019. Here, a gentle slope and sandy gravel soils with slightly more clay than its neighbor Cheval Blanc create the terroir.

In the winery, movement of juice and wine is done gently, powered by gravity to aid the preservation of phenolics. Grapes undergo 12-24 hours of cold maceration, and then vinification takes place in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks. The grand vin is then aged oak barrels, a majority of which are new for 16 months.

Records for La Dominique date back to 1690, although it was first mentioned as a wine estate with its current name in 1785. The name is derived from Dominica in the Caribbean where the owner made his fortune.

The estate’s reputation dipped in the first half of the 20th Century and in 1969 it was bought by French industrialist Clément Fayat. Sustained investment brought about a return to form.

Along with Château Fayat in Pomerol and Château Clément-Pichon in the Haut-Médoc, the estates form the Vignobles Clément Fayat portfolio.

To find out more about this wine and where to buy it go to the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/la+dominique+st+emilion+grand+cru+bordeaux+france/2021

#winesearcher #winetasting #saintemilion #ladominique #bordeaux #clarets #merlot #redbordeaux #winelover #masterofwine #grandcruclasse #stemiliongrandcruclasse #chateauladominique

Hello there today I’m taking a look at a wine from santon in Bordeaux this is the chadow la Dominique 2021 and that’s a gr crew class there’s been a state on this site since 1690 the name L Dominique was first recorded in 1785 and it relates to

The fact that the owner at that time had made their fortune in Dominica in the Caribbean the wine was classified as a a grw Class A in the 1955 classification of sant migal it’s a 29 hectare estate which sits near the boundary with pomon and one of its near neighbors is Shadow

Cheval Blanc Cheval Blanc sits on What’s called the grav region of cental not to be confused with the gra region of Bordeaux but it’s an area where there is more gravel in the soils than is normal and that this area runs across into parts of pomal shut up Dominique is on

The edge of this so it has some areas of grally clay soil some areas of more sort of clay Limestone and some areas with Sands and Clay the quality of the wines from the estates had declined somewhat when in 1969 French industrial industrialist font fyat purchased the

Property and he and his family have invested heavily in The Vineyards and in the winery and wine quality has improved notably this particular vintage is 85% Merlo with 133% of cabet Fran and a further 2% of cabinet Soo The Vines here are on average about 30 years old so they’re relatively

Mature and plantings are somewhere in the region of 7 and a half thousand Vines the hector picking went on with the merlos being picked between the 29th of September and the 8th of October and then the cabinet being pick between the 6th and the 8th of October in the winery

The practice is that fruit juice and must is moved around by gravity wherever possible so very gentle handlings adopted once the wines have arrived at the winery they undergo a 12 to 24hour cold soak so the fruit will have been crushed and it’s allowed prefermentation to sit to extract colors and Aromas from

The the grape skins into the juice without the presence of alcohol which once fermentation has started becomes quite a sort of a strong extractant so this taking more delicate notes out of the fruit fermentation goes on in stainless steel tanks in the shape of inverted cones each one holding 75 hatal

At the end of the fermentation the wine is aged for 14 months half of it goes into new French Oak BS 10% is put into anori and the remaining portion ages in older Oak I’ll be interested to try this because I think the 2021 vintage is a vintage that’s likely to be somewhat

Overlooked given that it follows on from Tre overripe vintages 18 19 and 20 and then is followed by the um really quite impressive 22 vintage 21 thus has a different style I mean this is only 13 1 12% alcohol I’m expecting it to be a little leaner more structured and

Actually to have quite good acidity there were all sorts of problems in 2021 there were frosts and there were issues with fungal infection so producers had to work really quite hard to prod of wine in in the 21 vintage but actually I think they’ve been quite successful and

They’ve made some elegant wines so I’m interested to see how this has worked out looking at it from the outset you’ve got a deep dark wine it’s it’s a ruby red it’s virtually opaque it’s holding its color well to the rim sring it given that it’s only 13 and a half%

Alcohol it’s throwing some quite notable tears on the side of the glass and they’ve actually got good color they’re staining the glass there so let’s see what we make of the aroma shall we I have to say when I nosed this earlier it was quite earthy and un unpleasant but that Aroma has

Dissipated and now I’m getting quite a quite a sort of a classic Cleon nose and there’s really sort of rip dark Plum notes red plum through to a sort of riper dams and bullish note there’s also freshness it’s just a tiny hint of leafiness but not very

Much and the oak seems very restrained as well so let’s for Taste the wine starts with good fresh there is a firm fine tanic structure and behind that there is a a ripe Plumb but the Plumb is not followed by the high alcohol that you might see in

Something like some of the twin wines from the 2020 V instead that’s allowing a licoricey richness to come out on the Finish more bitter licorice not a sweet Licorice and that’s there with red fruit note notes perhaps a touch of raspberry but again coming back to this lovely

Fresh red plum the structure is somewhat dominating the fruit at the moment I’m not particularly seeing a lot of sort of cedr yes there’s that texture of sort of drying fine notes there’s perhaps a hint of Cedar but it’s not very much to the flavors are lasting really well and I

Think that’s the nice acidity and the fact that alcohol isn’t overwhelming the fruit on the f as yet this is a young wine and I think it probably needs two three years in Bottle to smooth out and to allow those tannins to to gain a little more Elegance but there’s good

Grip there’s really lovely length there reasonable concentration I should be interested to try some more of the 2020 ones because I think potentially at the right price this is going to offer some very classic elegant drinking o over the midterm perhaps up to 10 up to 10 years

Of age so thank you very much for watching I hope you found this of interest if you’ve enjoyed the tasting do please press the like button that would be much appreciated if you have some friends who you think might be interested in watching do please feel

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What you think about the wines we’re doing the tastings we’re putting or or anything else related to that most importantly though I do hope you’ll take some time come and join us for another in the near future thanks again bye for now