Beschreibung:

Château Valandraud I got to know Jean-Luc and Murielle Thunevin through a German customer of mine. We had spent the day tasting in Saint Emilion and had been invited over to the little house he had bought in the middle of the village. My recollection of that beautiful barbecue evening in their backyard is one of highly charged conversation about what Saint Emilion wines ought to be and of emptying the contents of several great bottles from the appellation as a demonstration. It is also one of sudden realisation that the « garage » movement had well and truly started : his first vintages were made in his garage by the barbecue, with no room or ressources for a crusher so they crushed by hand. Being a motor racing fan at the time, I quickly made the association with Le Mans where two local guys had built a car in their garage and had just beaten the hell out of the works Porsches. It wasn't long before he and several like-minded anti-conformists would be overtaking many of the established grands crus classés. It brought out the rebellious streak in me and I gave them all the support I could and so did Parker who, when criticised, stood by his guns and pronounced « What's wrong with a guy buying a no-name lot of good land and doing the best thing he can with it ? ». And when Jean Nossiter, producer of the film Mondovino, held a lunch to celebrate its opening night (in Bordeaux), threw into the conversation : « What is the difference between a growth and a brand ? », Jean-Luc replied that when he started, Valandraud was a brand, « Val » representing the 0.6 ha of land he had bought in the valley by the village and « Andraud » being his wife's maiden name ; but that now that his enlarged vineyard had stabilised into a single terroir for several years, he was entitled to call it a growth. This great answer was vindicated in 2012 when he was awarded Premier Grand Cru Classé status. At first, I found the wines a bit exotic, playing on spicy aromas and often showing too much oak but, as time went on, they gradually became much more sophisticated and terroir-driven. Strangely, I found the '04 to be more in that finer style than the '05, the former seeming to me modern but classy, very ripe yet fresh, and the tannins strong but long, the latter more opulent and velvety. Maybe those earlier hot vintages of the movement, '00, '03 and '05, were slightly excessive for the newfound hand-crafted concentration that was being imparted to the wines. Whatever, they are now both on excellent form. Château Valandraud 2004 Saint-Emilion, grand cru classé In original wooden case 12 bottles per lot