Grape Varieties: 50% Sauvignon Gris, 35% Sauvignon blanc, 15% Semillon
Alcohol: 13.5%
Volume: 750ml
Characteristics: In the winemaking process, the traditional and the modern are combined. After the grapes are picked, they will be screened first, and only the most mature grapes will be used for winemaking. The grapes are then fermented in two open winemaking vessels, then malolactically fermented in oak barrels, and finally aged in oak barrels for 18 months. The oak barrels used are all new oak barrels, which are replaced every 9 months.
Tasting Notes: The wine is bright and golden rice-colored. It smells good with the aroma of ripe grapefruit, pear and buried white peach. After being aged in wooden barrels, it brings Li and Vanilla, and the aroma is creamy.
On the palate, the taste of stone fruit is similar to that of peach/preserved apricot. The ripening is fruity and the aging is complex. The wine is full and full. The acidity is crisp and balanced, with a hint of minerality at the end and the sweetness of honey
James Suckling 94
This is showing aromas of smoked almonds, crushed stones, fennel, lavender, cedar and orange curd. It’s flinty, subtly spicy and medium- to full-bodied, with bright acidity. Mineral and elegant finish.
Vinous 94
The 2021 Valandraud Blanc is rich, deep and super-expressive. There is a level of intensityhere that is beguiling. Lemon confit, marzipan, white flowers, crushed rocks and slate abound.All the Blanc needs is time-a recent bottle of the 2017 was outstanding. Light tropical notesand white flowers linger on the resonant close.
Garage Wine (Garagiste) originated from Bordeaux in the mid-1990s. At that time, a group of winemakers rose up to break the tradition and trendy movement, adhering to the concept of "the lower the yield, the better the wine", a group of mini wineries Thus was born. Due to the small scale, in order to save the cost of winemaking, some wineries had to choose the cellar/garage as the winemaking venue, hence the name of the garage wine.
Chateau de Valandraud is the watchmaker of garage wine.
Jean-Luc Thunevin, who founded Chateau de Valandraud, has an inspirational life story that could be made into a movie and put on the big screen. Jean-Luc Thunevin was born in Algeria and moved to France in 1960 as a 9-year-old boy, 16 years old Working as a lumberjack, working as a bank teller at the age of 25, it has nothing to do with alcohol
Everything is arranged in the dark. Before he started brewing, Jean Luc Thunevin opened a small restaurant called TERTRE in Saint-Emilion. At that time, a regular customer in the restaurant was an employee of Bertus. Jean Luc Thunevin has always been very caring for him, and the other party He also often introduces to him how the wine department of Petos is extraordinary. Jean Luc Thunevin was so fascinated that he decided to write a letter to Petrus, the owner, hoping to buy two bottles of wine. Then he received an unexpected reply. The content of the letter is probably as follows: Petos never retails, and the rules cannot be broken, but because you have taken care of the staff of Petos, you are specially presented with two bottles of 1955 Petos wine.
So Jean Luc Thunevin's wife opened two wines at the birthday party. It was precisely because of this wine tasting experience that Jean Luc Thunevin had the idea to make wine.
In 1989, Jean Luc Thunevin bought 0.6 hectares of land with a loan of 150,000 euros. At that time, there was no place for winemaking. Jean Luc
Thunevin and his wife worked together to convert a garage into a left winemaking workshop. 1991 was the first grape harvest year, and the two of them, together with relatives and friends, went through picking, stemming, peeling, pressing, and fermentation. The process is all done by hand and aged in new French oak barrels.
Unexpectedly, the excellent quality of Chateau Valandraud wines made Jean Luc Thunevin famous overnight and shocked the whole wine world. Jean Luc Thunevin was interviewed by four famous European TV stations on the left in one day. All the people in the industry are vying to taste and talk about Qu Jijiu. There is a so-called "once on the Dragon Gate, ten times the price"
In September 1996, the world's most famous wine auction house, Sotheby's, auctioned the 1991 Chateau Valandraud, and each bottle sold for a high price of 1,000 US dollars. Both 1992 and 1993 were sold at the same high price. In the past ten years, the price was 20% to 30% higher than that of Lafite. Although the price of home has stabilized, it is still one of the ten most expensive wines in Bordeaux. In 2000, the 1996 Château Valandraud was sold for $1,000 in France, twice as much as the 1996 Château Chevalier. Since then, garage wine has become synonymous with high quality and low output.
Robert Parker口中的BadBoy
Jean Luc Thunevin's boldness, talent, and innovative ideas have led top wine critics to jokingly call him "Badboy", and the title of Bordeaux's bad boy follows Jean Luc Thunevin
Château Valandrau was finally included in Mr. parker's book - The World's Greatest Wine Estates, which is as famous as more than 100 famous
wineries in the world
The book reviews "Château Valandrau, although not officially classified, has been rated as one of the best wineries in the Bordeaux region by
many professional wine critics. Jean Luc Thunevin inspires a new generation of young and dynamic winemakers to produce more and more wines. The high-quality and fine wines have made great contributions to the development of the Bordeaux region.
Finally, in September 2012, Château Valandrau was officially classified as a Premier Grand Cru Classe B by the CIVB of the Bordeaux Regional Industry Association. It became a first-class winery on the right bank of Bordeaux. It is a traditional and conservative land in Bordeaux. It is regrettable that the conservative ideas of the left group, the wine aristocrats, have made more impossible.
