Bourgueil Les Marsaules

I had the pleasure of tasting this wine for the first time in one of my two favorite Parisian restaurants. Like so many others, I was on the hunt for the Clos Nouveau, but – unsurprisingly – it was unavailable. Of course, I was disappointed at first, but I really wanted to drink something from the Gauthiers that evening, so I ordered the Marsaules. When the sommelier brought us the wine to taste, we quickly forgot that we would have preferred something else, because the Les Marsaules was so good and perfectly paired with Polmard's hearty “Côte de Boeuf for two” on a warm autumn evening on the terrace in Paris. Wonderful! Les Marsaules is grown on vines which were planted in sand and limestone in the late 1950s and which the Gauthiers – like all their vines – have been cultivating according to organic principles since 2000 and have had this certified – something not all our winemakers do, because this process involves a lot of administrative work, as you can imagine, we are in France after all.

The grapes are completely destemmed and fermented for 20 to 30 days without the addition of cultivated yeasts, during which time they are repeatedly sprayed with juice and pressed into the juice by hand with a wooden stamp – a very gentle method of extraction when carried out correctly and carefully. The wine is then placed in barrels for around two years, some of which may be new – but this is not always the case, because a good winemaker like Gauthier does not work according to a fixed recipe, but does what the wine and the vintage demand.

And now to the finished wine, which has a mysterious dark aroma – by which I mean dark fruit – and, in addition to this wonderful fruit, also offers many mineral components reminiscent of black pudding, i.e., something iron-like. Spices and black tea also play a role and provide the high notes in this great bouquet. Powerful, good, no, noble, structured with silky tannins, the wine flows across the palate and reveals itself to be breathtakingly elegant and yet so incredibly present.

It is important to mention that you should definitely decant this wine, otherwise it may be a little difficult to approach, at least in the first four or five years after delivery. BUT you have the opportunity here to purchase a great Cabernet Franc that will give you many years of enjoyment.