Offerings
Beau Site – Brilliant Red from the Right Bank
Sep
This week’s wine is a beauty. A luscious red from Fronsac, Beau Site on the right bank of Bordeaux, beside Pomerol. Fronsac shares the same limestone terroir as its more famous neighbour, but is a hidden gem.
Olivier Goujon is one of the hardest working winemakers I have ever met. He works the vineyard: pruning in the winter, managing vine growth in the spring and summer, picking in the fall. He works the cellar throughout the year, vinifying his wines, putting them in barrel, bottling, corking, labelling and packing his shipments. As if this were not enough, he even does his own deliveries, to restaurants and bottle shops in Bordeaux and monthly trips to Northern France and Belgium to deliver to customers there. He is a person who loves to work! And when he goes on holiday? He helps pick corn on farms in Central France.
I suppose it was fortuitous that he grew up on a wine estate. Like many in the area, Olivier followed in multigenerational footsteps. Despite the familial obligation, he never wanted to do anything else from the time he was 13 years old.
Yet to meet Olivier, you would never discern this dedication. He is soft-spoken, funny and loves to get together with people. Having guests is an excuse for a party, and bottles of wine and platters of food just appear. Conversation and wine flow like water when Olivier is around. I’ve often felt that wine displays the personality of its maker, and the Chateau Magondeau Fronsac “Beau Site” is a clear example of this: honest, forthright and playful.
The best sites in Fronsac tend to be in the north of the region, around the village of Saillans. Here the hillsides are highest in what is already one of the most elevated appellations in Bordeaux. Olivier’s “Beau Site” is the very top of the hill, which gently slopes toward the Isle river. Due to its southeast facing exposure, the site gets consistent ripeness from year to year, but the elevation ensures a vibrancy and haunting aromatics that develop with inevitably cooler nights.
Beau Site – Brilliant Red from the Right Bank
The Chateau Magondeau Fronsac Beau Site 2016 is absolutely brilliant. Perfectly made 100% merlot, with lush, ripe fruit. There is blackberry, plums and wild strawberry with floral notes of cornflower and violet as well as cake spices, chocolate, pencil lead and toasted almond. The palate replays the ripe black fruit and shows evident minerality, yet with fresh acidity that provides fine tension. Plenty of tannins, but they are so ripe and silky that they are almost imperceptible. Very good length. Enjoy now with duck, poultry or steak, or cellar for 10 to 12 years. 14% alc.
I think you will enjoy it as much as I did. You can order here.
