Chateau Le Puy, Amoreau Duc des Nauves Bordeaux Rouge 2023

70% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon

Bordeaux, France

A cuvée from The Duc des Nauves vineyard, situated on the same astéries-limestone mother rock as those of the main estate, but at a slightly lower altitude—80 meters above sea level compared to Le Puy’s 110 meters. Fermentation occurs with indigenous yeast, maturing in small, cement vats, bottled without filtration after 12 months. The aromatic bouquet reveals black fruit, plum and cherry, well balanced between its freshness and velvety tannins. VEGAN

What a joy it is to have access to the “second wine” of such a singular estate. One that boasts the same rigorously natural vineyard management and cellar practices as Chateau Le Puy itself. The Amoreau family acquired this nine-hectare vineyard in 2006, and immediately began employing biodynamic practices (Duc des Nauves is certified biodynamic as of the 2015 vintage). 

The very existence of Chateau Le Puy almost defies belief. In, of all places, Bordeaux—a region that fell especially hard for the oak-and-muscles approach favored by certain critics and point-chasers over the past few decades—there exists a sizable and historic estate that has never made even the slightest concession toward modern winemaking. In continuous operation by the Amoreau family since 1610, Le Puy has never employed chemicals in their vineyards (Pascal Amoreau quips that the ancestors were “too cheap” to buy them!). They began using biodynamic treatments—the manure-filled horn (for the soil) and quartz spray (for the leaves)—in the 1960s. They own a few large and beautiful horses which they use to plow their best parcels. Of their 100 hectares, only 45 are planted to vine; the rest are preserved as fields, forests, and ponds in order to maintain a natural ecological equilibrium.

Chateau Le Puy’s relative geographical isolation certainly helps them remain so firmly outside of trend and fashion. Located far out on the Right Bank in the Francs Cotes de Bordeaux appellation, they are not exactly in the epicenter of blue-chip Bordeaux territory. However, their vineyards are on the same limestone plateau as Saint-Emilion and Pomerol—and at the same altitude (110 meters above sea level). Like those more vaunted appellations, Le Puy’s is a terroir of extremely poor topsoil: barely half a meter of red clay and sand before the mother rock. And the wines themselves have a poise and complexity far beyond what one typically encounters in these satellite appellations of Bordeaux.

Oak vessels as large and as old as one finds at Le Puy are an extraordinarily rare sight in Bordeaux. In fact, the Amoreaus only replace barrels when they are no longer functional. Sulfur is applied in as small of a dose as is needed, and in fact is sometimes not applied at all—another practice almost unheard of in Bordeaux. And the wines are never fined or filtered, nor have they ever been.