How Good is Saint-Emilion Wine?

Today we’re continuing our Wine in 5 series…

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In previous episodes we looked at Pauillac, Margaux, we explained the Spanish Rioja and Italian Barolo, and now I want to look into an even more famous appellation of Bordeaux: Saint-Emilion. At the end of the video, we’ll rate St Emilion on our World Wine Appellations Leaderboard to see how it ranks in the world compared to others like Margaux AND talk about the most expensive St Emilions that you should probably taste before you die. While they whine, WE wine.

00:00 – Saint Emilion Wine Intro
01:25 – What and Where is Saint-Emilion?
03:06 – The Grapes of Saint-Emilion
03:58 – Saint-Emilion’s Terroir
05:03 – Wine Styles
06:13 – Most Expensive Saint-Emilion Wines
08:00 – How Good is St Emilion Wine?

Images featured in the video are curtesy of/To learn more about St Emilion visit: https://vins-saint-emilion.com/

Video Content (Transcript)
What and Where is Saint-Emilion
St Emilion is a village, or say a small town located on the RIGHT bank of the Bordeaux region so we’re going to expect Merlot dominant but we’ll discuss that in a minute, and around the town is quite a LARGE vineyard area that forms the St Emilion wine appellation. And I’d want to get back to how large St Emilion IS, because it’s actually pretty large, let me know in the comments if you’d like me to talk more about in a future video. 3 Interesting facts about ST Emilion: 1- The Romans were the firsts to plant vines here in the 3d century BC and you still find Roman ruins scattered in the local landscape. 2- The town of Saint-Émilion owes its name to a hermit named Emilion who lived in a cave in the 8th century. His monastery eventually grew into the thriving medieval town we see today. Thirdly, in 1999 for the first time in the world a vineyard was registered on the World Heritage List by the UNESCO.
The Grapes of Saint-Emilion
Yes, we are on the right bank of Bordeaux, so Merlot is dominant, because the soil, as we’ll discuss in a minute, is quite cold so Cabernet Sauvignon doesn’t do as well here because it ripens slower and later. Still, unlike Pomerol that uses almost exclusively 100% Merlot, in St-Emilion, most wineries use a blend, mainly Merlot, but also blending in some Cabernet Franc which accounts for a third of plantings here, and sometimes some Cabernet Sauvignon.
Saint-Emilion’s Terroir
The soils of Saint Emilion are often presented as based on limestone rock, so clay-limestone, but it’s actually way more complicated than this. Being such a large appellation, you find a variety of soils. If you look at a map of soils, you’ll see that yes, ON the St Emilion plateau, on the hill where the village is, IT IS very limestone-rich and vines grow on the limestone rock, which is where most of the Top Chateaux are, but around that hill, you have large plains with clay soils, others with sand and gravels and areas where it’s a mix of everything, as a result, the wines of Saint Emilion are quite diverse in fact…
Wine Styles
St Emilion wines are exclusively red wines that are dense, generous reds, quite fruity thanks to the Merlot, but also complex and compact thanks to the Cabernets. Most premium St Emilion wines are aged in oak barrels for a year or two, but they do not have to. Cheaper examples can just be matured in tank. Entry-level St Emilion will typically age for 5 to years, while premium ones more like 15 to 20.
The Most Expensive Saint-Emilion Wines
The #1 most expensive St Emilion is called ‘Hommage a Elisabeth Bouchet’ by famous winery Chateau Angelus at about $1500 a bottle, and I’ve covered it in my Top 10 Most Expensive Bordeaux wines video. I don’t want to repeat myself too much, you can watch it here. AFTER this anecdotal cuvée come the 2 super stars producers of St Emilion, Chateau Ausone at about $700 a bottle, a winery with quite a small production for the area, it’s very exclusive and located right on top of the limestone hill with a lot of Cabernet Franc in the blend, so a truly unique and scarce wine. In the third position is Chateau Cheval Blanc at $690, a totally different beast, located on the fringes of the appellation, more towards Pomerol than towards the St Emilion village. The strength of Cheval Blanc is that they have a variety of soils, clay, gravels, limestone which is great for blending one of the finest wines of Bordeaux. As a Bonus, at 4th and 5th are the afore mentioned Chateau Angelus, and Chateau Pavie both at around $350 to $400 a bottle.