Sometimes all you need to introduce a wine are the cold hard facts: 25 year old, Cabernet dominant Bordeaux that was stored in the same cold cellar where it was born for two decades before making its way to the U.S. Oh, and it somehow costs less than $60! Boom, enough said right? But of course there’s much more to the story, including biodynamic farming, very old school winemaking of the type that is vanishingly rare in Bordeaux, and a long standing friendship between neighbors. It’s the kind of feel good yarn that you may occasionally stumble upon in obscure, under the radar regions, but to find one just a few miles from some of the most expensive vineyards on the planet is exceedingly rare. So please read on for the fascinating back story, but if I had you at “1999 vintage for less than $60” feel free to skip right to the end and start loading up your cart!
Closerie du Pelan is a unique property situated in what most experts would consider an “outer-borough” location: the eastern edge of Bordeaux’s “right bank,” at the confluence of the Francs-Côtes-de-Bordeaux and Côtes de Castillon AOCs. These appellations, which sit on essentially the same clay/limestone plateau as Saint-Émilion and Pomerol, are prime hunting ground for value-hunters, who know that market prices from one village to the next are often much more dramatic than the differences in the terroir.
Add in a producer with the focus and pedigree of Closerie du Pelan and the lines aren’t just blurred but effectively erased. A local artist named Régis Moro purchased the property in 1984 and poured his energies into viticulture, embracing organics and biodynamics with the same enthusiasm as his old friend, Jean-Pierre Amoreau, whose Château Le Puy has become a cause célèbre with the natural wine crowd. Although Moro managed to achieve organic certification for Closerie du Pelan in 2008 (and biodynamic certification in ’13), the wines weren’t finding a broad-enough audience; in 2022, the Amoreau family—which has owned Château Le Puy for more than 400 years—saw the potential at Pelan and decided to purchase it from Moro.
Upon taking the reins at Closerie du Pelan, the Amoreaus wanted to get a sense of what they had, and started uncorking back-vintage bottles with their US importer—a revelatory tasting that led to today’s offer. Held in perfect conditions and still closed with its original cork, this 1999 is a soulful and complex expression of a ripe and powerful vintage. The wine displays a ruby-black core moving to orange at the rim, belying its 25 years of age, and the aromatics are a mature Bordeaux-lover’s dream: brambly black and red berries, black plum, wild mushroom, cedar, tobacco, warm spices, turned earth, and fired clay. It’s noteworthy that the vineyards at Closerie du Pelan contain about 75% Cabernet Sauvignon (unusual for a Right Bank estate), perhaps because there’s more sand and silt in the Pelan parcels relative to those at Le Puy, and the structure of this wine reflects that healthy Cabernet presence. It is a beautiful, sinewy wine with lots of lively energy for its age, and it can handle a brief decant (for sediment) prior to service in Bordeaux stems at 60-65 degrees. Pair it with a dish that will complement its floral, earth-driven personality and celebrate perhaps the greatest Bordeaux deal of the year. Cheers!
