Closerie Saint Roc

【Four centuries of lineage, awakening on new ground】

On Bordeaux's Right Bank, the same seam of asteria limestone that nourishes Saint-Émilion and Pomerol runs quietly on beneath the surface. Where it reaches, enclosed by dry-stone walls, lies the sixteen-hectare parcel of Closerie Saint Roc. The land was acquired by the Amoreau family, guardians since 1610 of Château Le Puy, one of Bordeaux's legendary domaines. When Pascal Amoreau brought this vineyard back to life in 2013, the philosophy handed down through four hundred years found itself a new stage.

The soil is clay-limestone, richly seeded with fossils. Every turn of the hoe brings up shells, testimony to the primeval sea that once covered this ground. The limestone bedrock, continuous with that of Pomerol and Saint-Émilion, lends the fruit a bracing minerality and a taut, upright frame. This was also the stage on which England and France contested their rivalry in the twelfth century, and the earth itself holds those centuries of memory in quiet keeping.

The vineyard is farmed biodynamically, certified by both Ecocert and Demeter. The soil is worked by horse to avoid compaction, and no chemical treatments of any kind are used. The winemaking is equally uncompromising: spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts, gentle extraction, ageing in old barrels, no fining, no filtration and no added sulphur. To this is added a practice found nowhere else: a dynamisation carried out in step with the phases of the moon, stirring alternately clockwise and anti-clockwise. Each parcel is vinified separately and bottled as its own single vineyard, so that nothing this land has to say is lost along the way.

The varieties are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. What results is a glass in which the poised elegance of classical Bordeaux and the vivid, living energy of natural wine sit together in remarkable harmony. From deep within the concentrated fruit rise a clean, limestone-drawn minerality and a complex, forest-floor perfume, and the finish is clarity itself.

A philosophy four hundred years in the making, putting out fresh shoots in a virgin vineyard. It is a rare moment, and one best experienced in the glass.