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Château Haut Tour de Coutelin, Saint-Estèphe

Bordeaux, France 2016 (750mL)
Regular price$29.00
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Château Haut Tour de Coutelin, Saint-Estèphe

If you want power, texture, and savory opulence in your Left Bank Bordeaux, the epic 2016 vintage is for you, but collective prices may not be—especially world-famous “pay-to-play” appellations like Saint-Estèphe. Still, value-driven, modern-day treasures are still out there for the taking if you bypass the middleman and do your own hunting. That’s why I found myself in the backseat of a car in 2018, on our way to Bernard Estager’s newly acquired parcel of vines for Haut Tour de Coutelin.


Upon arrival, we craned our heads up to view an ancient, seemingly medieval tower (depicted on the front label) that served as both a beacon and marker for their vines. It didn’t take much longer to realize just how grand of a site we were in, evidenced by the fact that Monsieur Estager was spouting off a who’s who of elite neighbors left and right. And after tasting today’s bottling back at the château, we struck up a direct-import deal on the spot. So here it is: Haut Tour de Coutelin’s powerful and intensely savory 2016, straight from France and temperature-controlled the entire way—all for $32. Unless you're allergic to Bordeaux, ignoring a fine bottle of 2016 Saint-Estèphe at this price simply doesn’t make sense.


Owned and passed down by the Estager family since 1904, Chateau Coutelin-Merville oversees a couple of dozen hectares throughout Saint-Estèphe, and current proprietor Bernard Estager’s recent vine acquisition surrounded by an old tower (“tour”) resulted in the birth of today’s “Haut Tour de Coutelin” label. 



One of their secrets to crafting delicious wines is a heavy proportion of Merlot (~50%) followed by roughly equal parts Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc. His 30-year-old vines—situated at the highest point in Saint-Estèphe—are farmed sustainably, without chemicals, and a cool fermentation in concrete vessels takes place back at the Coutelin-Merville home base. Afterward, 12 months of aging is carried out in mostly used French barrels (25% new) so as not to bludgeon the wine with excess oak spice. 



Estager’s 2016 Haut Tour de Coutelin is a spectacular Bordeaux that could only be born by a generations-deep château. It’s lush, dense, and packs a sublime yet resoundingly powerful “2016” punch—a vintage that had people throwing out words like “perfect, ” “classic,” and “legendary.” It pours a brooding deep ruby in the glass and with just a brief 15-minute decant begins strutting its seductive aromatics: black cherry liqueur, dried/spiced plums, black raspberry, tobacco leaf, currant, wet gravel, cedar, cigar wrapper, and intricately woven baking spices. It delivers a rich, dark, and voluptuous mouthfeel, certainly, but it retains 100% of its Left Bank authenticity by rolling out extended layers of crushed mineral savor. We typically don’t label a $32 wine as a collector item, but when you consider the general pricing of 2016 Bordeaux, it’s hard to not to think of this as a hot investment. Enjoy now and over the next 5-10 years! 
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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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