Preserved by the beaten earth of the castle cellar for many years, a treasure awaited discovery. A bottle of wine, stoppered with emery, from a hand-blown glass, witness to ancestral know-how. It is with great emotion that the one who discovered it unearthed a past 200 years old, steeped in history and mysteries.
Who had buried her there? For how long exactly? Why was its cap shaped like a heart? Was it a special production for a wedding or a symbol of the winegrower's love for this cuvée?
What is certain is that this bottle bears witness to the peculiarity of this château where almost nothing has changed for 200 years. A land virgin of any chemical pollution, in height, and therefore not subject to untimely runoff, having preserved an exceptional fauna and flora including some species that have disappeared elsewhere.
A wine born from the will of a few men to be fair, at home, with honor and reason, while preserving the richness of their land. It is with a keen awareness of its exceptional character that they collected this heritage, being themselves the future smugglers of this corner of paradise. Old or even medieval grape varieties, and winemaking methods that show that there is harmony between nature, man and productivity. A clay-limestone soil at the heart of the prestigious properties that are the Beauséjour Bécot and Angélus châteaux, enjoying a beautiful southwest exposure.
Bearer of this heritage, of this culture and learning of the wonderful discovery made by his uncle, Adrien David Beaulieu challenged himself to carry on the tradition and create a special cuvée using the methods of 1750, the estimated date of the bottle *.
He then selects the highest plots of the domain, those of Peycocut, “the cuckoo pit”, a vestige of a Saint Emilionnais terroir before the era of pesticides. The two emblematic grape varieties of the appellation are cultivated there. Cabernet Franc as well as Merlot.
Merlot is the so-called “red tail” Merlot which is characterized by its small size and low yields, thus helping to obtain excellent concentration. It has always been grafted by the David Beaulieu family and obtained through mass selection.
Cabernet Franc is characterized by its early maturity which comes from the type of rootstock. It is therefore easier to control its development and therefore to harvest in excellent conditions of maturity.
* The bottle may have been dated, not by the characteristics of its container (it was of course not opened), but by the nature of its closure system as well as by its specific characteristics, such as the chemical composition of the glass, its shape, its overall appearance and its puncture. Dating carried out by Mr. Guillot, glassmaker by trade (Meilleur Ouvrier de France Verrier), authorized by the courts.
To preserve the virginity of this land, no tractor circulates there: a draft horse performs the tasks. The soils are less compacted, which favors the flow of water and the life of invertebrates and micro-bacterial organisms. The soil of these plots is therefore rich in terms of auxiliaries ...
The treatments to protect the vines are those applied in the 19th century with Bordeaux mixture, sprayed on the back of a man. The small size of these plots and the method used for the treatments guarantee the good health of the vines and their fruits.
Once the grapes are ripe, they are harvested and sorted by hand and then deposited, still manually, in a wooden cask. The vinification work is carried out - without the aid of pumps - by manual punching down, as our ancestors did.
Sheltered in an old cellar with a perfect micro-bacterial balance, the malolactic transformation takes place naturally without adding yeasts or bacteria from the market. They are indigenous.
This cuvée will be matured for 18 months in 50% new barrels.
All that remains is to make an essential point to faithfully respect this ancestral discovery: the bottle and its corking method. It was 150 km from his land that Adrien David Beaulieu met Monsieur Guillot. This best worker of France studies the bottle with meticulousness and succeeds in finding what were the chemical components used in the composition of the glass of the bottle and its stopper (the bottle and the stopper being of different compositions).
He then makes the wooden mold which will allow an identical replica of the bottle. This method, a legacy of ancient and artisanal know-how, requires replacing the mold every 50 bottles, the heat of the glass gradually deforming it.
There remains the plugging. The glass stoppers are cast in a steel mold to the exact dimensions of the history. It takes 30 minutes of manual lapping of the cork with a reamer adorned with micro-diamonds for the bottle to become completely airtight.
The wine, then evolving very slowly in a closed system, will give rise to an exceptional production: “the Emeri cuvée”.
