Château de Lamarque ~ VINTAGE 2012
CRITICS & JOURNALIST NOTES
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Andreas larson" Red wine with a medium intense ruby-red colour. Fresh nose there, displaying rather red fruity notes, herbs, slight hint of leather and quite discreet oak. Palate is still youthful; still a bit tight with pronounced tannin and quite high acidity. Fruitiness is more, once again, on the red fruity side; with hints of red currant, some herbal spiciness, such as bay leaf. Quite classical style I would say, quite classically structured, with a style built for long aging, with a juicy red fruit, quite discreet oak and a rather long finish." - Andreas Larson - 100% Blind tasted
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Neil Martin (e-Robert Parker) ~ 87-89 point
The de Lamarque demonstrates fine fruit concentration on the nose with blackberry, raspberry and graphite notes that lend it a Pauillac-like allure . The palate is well balanced with grainy tannins, a little hardness on the palate, but fresh if conservative, classic finish .
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HARVEST 2012 - BY PIERRE-GILLES ET MARIE-HELENE
"I described the last three vintages - 2009, 2010, 2011- as ‘wine maker’ vintages. In describing 2012, I am reminded of professor Peynaud’s motto, “You make good wines with good grapes”. Wine makers were only able to prepare the quality of the 2012 crop by making the right growing decisions during a year of hide and seek with the weather.The harvest sun did the rest…transforming the grapes into an exceptional or very fine vintage.
All year long, as in every vintage, it was the wine maker’s close scrutiny and intelligence, which produced healthy, mature and plentiful grapes. Still, rainfall and temperatures during the 2012 harvest proved complex. This year’s weather conditions were nothing like those of the past three years and in the end, it was the weather at harvest time that characterised the vintage. The almost tropical climate we lived through in late August, with some hot and (thank God!) dry periods, had us on a knife edge until October 1st, when we began picking.
We finished on October 19th. From then on the vigneron needed all his wine maker skills. We had to wait for each variety, on each plot to reach the right balance: pH. theoretical degree, acidity and…perfect condition. We took maximum risk, certainly, and we also needed the capability to act quickly in the vineyard as well as in the winery.
This year we picked by hand and by machine. We used a state-of-the-art harvesting machine (it has no de-stemmer, to avoid tearing the grapes) to pick the first Merlot. We then picked the remaining Merlot by hand and the Cabernet Sauvignon mechanically. The Cabernet Franc and all the Petits-Verdot were harvested manually.We employed something of a ‘strike force’ strategy to harvest at optimum balance and optimum condition and crucially, we also had to bring-in extra sorting teams to check the grapes on arrival in the winery.
Until the 2011 vintage, our draconian sorting had been done, after de-stemming, on a 5-meter vibrating table by a team of 8 trained people. The grapes were then crushed before vatting. But this method, however excellent, was slow and led us to run risks with regard to the pace of harvest.
For a few years we had studied various sorting methods to improve work and speed and, last spring, we opted for the optical Defranceschi ‘X-TRI’, a machine already in service with some of our celebrated neighbours (La Lagune, Leoville Las Cases…). It combines both high quality sorting (cameras analyse chlorophyll rate according to set criteria) and speed. In view of conditions in 2012, it was a good investment and we were able to harvest, stop and resume operations precisely at the pace we desired. As I said earlier, the objective was to wait until the last moment then intervene quickly, according to the plot and the grape variety. Although unplanned, we should also add that we placed a supplementary vibrating table just outside the ‘XTRI’ before crushing, to do a final, two-person check and manual sorting - just-in-case!
Vinification was relatively easy and the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations went well: Pressing: one spinning and two pressings
Yield: 37 hl/ha (brut), after sort : 31hl/ha (net) on 37 Ha.
Alcohol: circa 13.3°
Tannin: average IPT 72
Acidity: 3.4g/l
…in short: good balance.
Grape Varieties Château de Lamarque 2012: 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot, 12% Petit-Verdot.
The Cabernet Franc with the young Merlot went into in the D de Lamarque. We blended with the help of oenologists Jacques and Eric Boissenot and produced 80% ‘Grand Vin’ (Château de Lamarque) and 20% ‘second wine’ (D de Lamarque).
All the 2012 went into barrel from mid-November 2012 until mid-January 2013. We used 5 French barrel makers. The barrels were medium toasted. We used 45% new oak, 40% barrels of one wine, 15% barrels of two wines ."
All year long, as in every vintage, it was the wine maker’s close scrutiny and intelligence, which produced healthy, mature and plentiful grapes. Still, rainfall and temperatures during the 2012 harvest proved complex. This year’s weather conditions were nothing like those of the past three years and in the end, it was the weather at harvest time that characterised the vintage. The almost tropical climate we lived through in late August, with some hot and (thank God!) dry periods, had us on a knife edge until October 1st, when we began picking.
We finished on October 19th. From then on the vigneron needed all his wine maker skills. We had to wait for each variety, on each plot to reach the right balance: pH. theoretical degree, acidity and…perfect condition. We took maximum risk, certainly, and we also needed the capability to act quickly in the vineyard as well as in the winery.
This year we picked by hand and by machine. We used a state-of-the-art harvesting machine (it has no de-stemmer, to avoid tearing the grapes) to pick the first Merlot. We then picked the remaining Merlot by hand and the Cabernet Sauvignon mechanically. The Cabernet Franc and all the Petits-Verdot were harvested manually.We employed something of a ‘strike force’ strategy to harvest at optimum balance and optimum condition and crucially, we also had to bring-in extra sorting teams to check the grapes on arrival in the winery.
Until the 2011 vintage, our draconian sorting had been done, after de-stemming, on a 5-meter vibrating table by a team of 8 trained people. The grapes were then crushed before vatting. But this method, however excellent, was slow and led us to run risks with regard to the pace of harvest.
For a few years we had studied various sorting methods to improve work and speed and, last spring, we opted for the optical Defranceschi ‘X-TRI’, a machine already in service with some of our celebrated neighbours (La Lagune, Leoville Las Cases…). It combines both high quality sorting (cameras analyse chlorophyll rate according to set criteria) and speed. In view of conditions in 2012, it was a good investment and we were able to harvest, stop and resume operations precisely at the pace we desired. As I said earlier, the objective was to wait until the last moment then intervene quickly, according to the plot and the grape variety. Although unplanned, we should also add that we placed a supplementary vibrating table just outside the ‘XTRI’ before crushing, to do a final, two-person check and manual sorting - just-in-case!
Vinification was relatively easy and the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations went well: Pressing: one spinning and two pressings
Yield: 37 hl/ha (brut), after sort : 31hl/ha (net) on 37 Ha.
Alcohol: circa 13.3°
Tannin: average IPT 72
Acidity: 3.4g/l
…in short: good balance.
Grape Varieties Château de Lamarque 2012: 45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot, 12% Petit-Verdot.
The Cabernet Franc with the young Merlot went into in the D de Lamarque. We blended with the help of oenologists Jacques and Eric Boissenot and produced 80% ‘Grand Vin’ (Château de Lamarque) and 20% ‘second wine’ (D de Lamarque).
All the 2012 went into barrel from mid-November 2012 until mid-January 2013. We used 5 French barrel makers. The barrels were medium toasted. We used 45% new oak, 40% barrels of one wine, 15% barrels of two wines ."