Chateau Bellevue St. Emilion Bordeaux Wine

Chateau Bellevue   Chateau Bellevue St. Emilion, Bordeaux wine producer profile, with wine tasting notes, wine ratings, a history of the property, information on wine making and terroir, along with wine tasting reviews. If you want to read about other important, Bordeaux Chateaux: Links to all Bordeaux Wine Producer Profiles

Chateau Bellevue in St. Emilion is known to have great terroir. The ancient Romans were aware of this. In fact, when walking the vineyards, it’s easy to spot remains of the original plantings left by ancient Roman vintners. The modern era of Chateau Bellevue begins in the 17th century. At that time, the Fief de Bellevue, became the owner. As was the custom of the day, he renamed the Bordeaux vineyard using his name. Chateau Bellevue hands in the 1930′s when it was pruchased by the day the de Conink familiy along with the Pradel de Lavaux family as a joint venture.

Starting with the 2000 vintage at Chateau Bellevue, the dynamic duo of Bordeaux, Nicolas Theinpont and Stéphane Derenoncourt were hired to turn the estate around. That was the first vintage in ages showing how good Chateau Bellevue could be. In late 2007, a 50% stake in the 5.90 hectare vineyard of Chateau Bellevue was purchased by the de Bouard family, owners of Chateau Angelus, which is located almost adjacent to the property. Since that time, Hubert de Bouard began calling the shots. Ironically, the de Bouard family had an opportunity to purchase the Right Bank property several decades ago. But due to difficult economic conditions at the time, they did not buy it when it was first offered.  Following the recent acquisition of the property, a complete, top to bottom renovation of Chateau Bellevue took place in the St. Emilion vineyards as well as in the cellars, reception area and wine making facilities. The de Bouard family own other estates in the Right Bank including Chateau La Fleur de Bouard in Lalande de Pomerol and Chateau de-Francs in Cotes de Francs.

The Bordeaux vineyard of Chateau Bellevue, with its clay and limestone soil is planted to 98% Merlot and 2% Cabernet Franc with vines that average 40 years of age. Previously, the estate had a lot more Cabernet Franc planted in the vineyards. But that has been removed in favor of Merlot. Chateau Bellevue maintains one of the highest planting of Merlot in St. Emilion. The ancient Roman ruins found throughout the soil, make it difficult to plant in some areas, as the remains are protected by law and cannot be disturbed. However, this makes it an amazing walk through the vineyards of Chateau Bellevue, as the remains are easy to see scattered about in the Right Bank soil.

Hubert de Bouard refers to the estate as the Petrus of St. Emilion, due to it’s high concentration. Chateau Bellevue is a labor intensive wine to make. After the fruit is hand harvested from the St. Emilion vineyards, the grapes are taken to the reception area and placed on four sorting tables. Vinification of Chateau Bellevue takes place in a combination of cement and oak tanks. Each block is fermented separately.  In 2009, for the first time, 40% of the wine was fermented in barrel.  Malolactic fermentation takes place in 100% new oak. The wine of Chateau Bellevue is aged in 100% new, French oak barrels. Sur lies aging takes place in barrel for the first six months.

Not only have renovations from top to bottom just been completed for the wine making facilities, chateau and vineyards of Chateau Bellevue, the bottles will look different as well. To compliment the changes in the vineyards, future vintages will sport a new label and logo for Chateau Bellevue.

Chateau Bellevue produces on average about 1,500 cases of wine per year. There is a second wine, La Caze Bellevue.

http://www.angelus.com/