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Château Moulin de Tricot, Haut-Médoc

Bordeaux, France 2016 (750mL)
$39.00
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Château Moulin de Tricot, Haut-Médoc

Perhaps no wine exemplifies what we’re trying to accomplish at SommSelect quite like this one: It is special, it is carefully and conscientiously made, it is a perfect expression of its terroir, and it is a superb, logic-defying value. 
Only about 500 cases of Moulin de Tricot’s timeless Haut-Médoc make it to the US each vintage, and if you’ve ever slept on a sidewalk for concert tickets or otherwise gone to great lengths to be first in line, you’ll understand how we feel about this family-run château—an artisanal minnow swimming among corporate whales in Bordeaux. Established in the 1800s and still run by the same family, Château Moulin de Tricot farms just 4.7 hectares of vineyards and bottles just two wines—a Margaux and today’s Haut-Médoc, which often disappears into the cellars of savvy restaurateurs before we can get our hands on any. Painstakingly handmade and resolutely traditional, this wine also carries a little “inside baseball” cachet: It is sourced from a single hectare of vines situated just outside the Margaux appellation boundary, necessitating its labeling as Haut-Médoc. The upshot, of course, is that you get a brilliant, handmade Bordeaux—driven by Cabernet Sauvignon and structured for long aging—at a fraction of the price of Margaux. It’s a thrill to obtain an allocation from the acclaimed 2016 vintage, so grab some before the inevitable sellout—it's a SommSelect Hall of Famer!
[**PLEASE NOTE: Today’s wine is available as a preorder; it will arrive in our warehouse in approximately two weeks.]

Château Moulin de Tricot is one of the last farmstead-scale wineries in Margaux. The current generation of vignerons, Bruno and Pascale Rey, farm the same parcels Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot their family has been planting and replanting since the mid-1800s. All fruit is organically grown, harvested and sorted by hand, from vines averaging 35 years of age. Fruit is de-stemmed before fermentation in stainless steel tanks with no addition of synthetic yeasts. After the juice is pressed off the skins, it is returned to the same tanks to undergo natural malolactic fermentation. Finally, the wine is racked into a collection of small, neutral oak barrels where it ages without filtration until bottling. In general, the process takes three to four years between harvest and the release of a mere 750 cases in total—of which the estate’s longtime US importer, Rosenthal Wine Merchant, gets a healthy percentage.

Before touching on this wine’s appearance or aromatics, I want to underscore that Moulin de Tricot has established a long track record for exceptional cellaring potential. I’ve enjoyed back vintages of Tricot with increasing frequency over the last decade and can report that these wines consistently deliver the windfall of terroir character and depth that simply isn’t achievable with young Bordeaux. So, before anything, I want to stress that this wine, modest price/appellation aside, is the real deal; like all of Bordeaux’s finest reds, it will undoubtedly reward those wise enough to set aside a few bottles in the back corner of their cellar.

In 2016, Château Moulin de Tricot’s Haut-Médoc leads with deep currant, cassis, black plum fruit, chiseled graphite, gravel minerality, cedar, cigar tobacco, and the gentlest kiss of oak spice. Unlike the 2015s from Bordeaux, which were juicier and more approachable in their youth, the 2016s are a more classically structured bunch—firm and more tightly grained, and therefore in a need of a good 90 minutes in a decanter if you’re looking to enjoy some now. As always, the cépage (blend) is roughly 75% Cabernet Sauvignon to 25% Merlot, and, appellation notwithstanding, you’d be hard-pressed not to call this Margaux in a blind tasting—it’s got the aromatic complexity, the power, the nobility, and all for less than $40. That’s just incredible, and it’s not at all unrealistic to expect 20 years of positive evolution from this wine. Treat it to an elegant meal while sipping and savoring slowly. If you’ve ever wondered what Bordeaux was like in the old days, this is it!
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Country
France
Region
Bordeaux
Sub-Region
FranceHaut-Médoc
Soil
Gravel, Sand, & Clay
Farming
Organic (Uncertified)
Blend
Cabernet Sauvignon 75%, Merlot 25%
Alcohol
13.0
OAK
Neutral French
TEMP.
60-65
Glassware
Bordeaux Stems
Drinking
Now-2030
Decanting
90 Minutes
Pairing
Beef Bordelaise

France

Bourgogne

Beaujolais

Enjoying the greatest wines of Beaujolais starts, as it usually does, with the lay of the land. In Beaujolais, 10 localities have been given their own AOC (Appellation of Controlled Origin) designation. They are: Saint Amour; Juliénas; Chénas; Moulin-à Vent; Fleurie; Chiroubles; Morgon; Régnié; Côte de Brouilly; and Brouilly.

Southwestern France

Bordeaux

Bordeaux surrounds two rivers, the Dordogne and Garonne, which intersect north of the city of Bordeaux to form the Gironde Estuary, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The region is at the 45th parallel (California’s Napa Valley is at the38th), with a mild, Atlantic-influenced climate enabling the maturation of late-ripening varieties.

Central France

Loire Valley

The Loire is France’s longest river (634 miles), originating in the southerly Cévennes Mountains, flowing north towards Paris, then curving westward and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantes. The Loire and its tributaries cover a huge swath of central France, with most of the wine appellations on an east-west stretch at47 degrees north (the same latitude as Burgundy).

Northeastern France

Alsace

Alsace, in Northeastern France, is one of the most geologically diverse wine regions in the world, with vineyards running from the foothills of theVosges Mountains down to the Rhine River Valley below.

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