Skip to main content

Meet the winemaker – Laurent Saint Pasteur of Château Cissac


Meet the winemaker – Laurent Saint Pasteur of Château Cissac
The Vialard family have owned Cissac since Louis Vialard inherited it in 1940 and today it’s run by 5th generation Marie Vialard with the help of winemaker Laurent Saint Pasteur.
Do you remember when and how you first began working with Averys?
We don’t remember exactly but from the 70s without any doubt and almost certainly even before.
Your wines have a very large and loyal following within Averys and the UK as a whole. What do you think has made them so successful?
The fact that Mr Louis Vialard was the first producer selling directly his wines to wine merchants in the UK just after the 2nd World War and organised many tastings and events across the country. We have then followed this work and are strongly committed to always increasing the quality of the wine. Also, the fact that the wine is only sold through traditional merchants and we always do our best to offer a fair and more or less steady price.
Would you say Cissac has a ‘house style’?
Yes, it does. It’s a typical wine from the Haut-Médoc planted with 75% Cabernet Sauvignon and aged in oak and has a long aging ability. In the glass the wine has a deep colour, well-integrated oak and combines the strength of the Médoc with the aromatic elegance of the greatest of the Bordeaux wines. It has a subtle balance between aromas of cherry and plums, mingled with liquorice and smoke…
We’re currently selling the 2014 vintage Château Cissac. Can you tell us a bit more about this wine and the vintage?
2014 is a very good vintage in Bordeaux and at Ch. Cissac. It’s more and more recognized as being close to 2015 & 2016 which are outstanding vintages. It has a deep colour and aromas of candied fruit, with a hint of spice coming from the Petit Verdot. The tannins are round and supple and the wine has a nice concentration due to the Indian summer that we had in this vintage. The wine is showing a lot of freshness, fruitiness and has a delightful acidity.
We also have the 2017 available to buy en primeur. Is this a vintage you’d recommend buying en primeur?
Yes indeed. Despite the vintage being known for having been severely affected by the frost (40% to 45% of the crop being lost in the whole Bordeaux area) we haven’t been hurt at all by luck. We managed to get wonderfully ripe berries and to make a wine which is showing plenty of smoothness, roundness, freshness and fruitiness. The wine got plenty of good ratings in that challenging vintage. 92 Wine Enthusiast, 88-89 James Suckling, 89-90 Antonio Galloni, 89 Markus Del Monego, 90 Vert de Vin, 16 Jancis Robinson
 
Patrick Vialard and Mimi at our celebration of wine

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 wines that tell the Averys story - Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay,

6. Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay Next up in our ‘10 wines that tell the Averys story’ is Tyrrell’s Vat 47 Chardonnay, the wine that put Australian Chardonnay on the world wine map. It’s hard to believe that fifty years ago, you couldn’t buy a bottle of Australian Chardonnay – even in Australia – it simply didn’t exist. The first commercially released Australian Chardonnay was Tyrrell’s Vat 47 1971. The story goes that Murray Tyrrell jumped the fence of the Penfolds HVD Pokolbin vineyard in the middle of the night to steal vine cuttings of Chardonnay (he’d already asked politely but as they’d refused, this was his only other option!) These cuttings reputedly went on to become the basis for Vat 47. Whether this is true or not is debatable but it certainly makes a good story! Since then, Tyrrell’s has become an Australian wine legend and that’s thanks in no small part to our very own John Avery. “The connection with the Avery family went back into the 1950s and John played...
1 comment
Read more

Meet the winemaker – Javier Murúa of Bodegas Muriel

Meet the winemaker – Javier Murúa of Bodegas Muriel Bodegas Muriel was set up by José Murúa in 1926 and is today run by his son Julián and grandson Javier. We caught up with Javier to find out more. Do you remember when & how you first began working with Averys? I would think around 15 years already, time passes by fast… Can you tell us a little about the history & winemaking philosophy at Bodegas Muriel? My grandfather began making wines in Elciego at the beginning of the 20 th century and supplying the restaurants in the Vasc Country. There has been quite an evolution since then and our range of products, as well as our markets have expanded a lot. We like the wine diversity, same as consumer diversity. But we feel each wine has its origin and purpose. We are very committed with the roots, and respectful with the traditional wine styles but we also consider consumer profiles which is why our range is quite wide. We also try minimum intervention in the vineyards a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Rhone 2017 Vintage Report

2017 - Small but perfectly formed Good things come in small packages goes the cliché, well cliché or not, the overall picture of the Rhone in 17 is one of reduced volumes, but broadly (whisper it) excellent quality; both North to South. In fact, the mantra being repeated by a number of vignerons I met in the sweltering conditions of August whilst travelling the region, was that the vintage in qualitative terms is parked somewhere between that of the duelling titanic years of 2015 & 2016. After regaling this sentiment to a colleague on my return, the reply was one of ‘that’s not a bad place to be’, well indeed, and from my stand point I’d struggle not to concur. This was a viewpoint echoed North to South. As ever lumping the entire all-encompassing Rhone region into one rigid narrative, or stylistic summary is almost impossible. One only has to appreciate the different natural surroundings of the split region. The north being the home of beautiful terraced vineyards, stark...
Post a Comment
Read more