Haut Médoc Château Guittot-Fellonneau
Last week I finally finished Ben Wallace’s The Billionaire’s Vinegar; started reading an uncorrected proof of Sam Young’s upcoming Fritz: A Chef and His City; and saw Jean-Marie Lacroix’s cameo in “Pressure Cooker” (a sweet film that I highly recommend). I also drank a bottle of Château Guittot-Fellonneau for the first time in three years.
So I am drifting in a reverie of nostalgia – for long-missed friends and shared pleasures, and for the time before vacuum concentrators, and reverse osmosis, and spinning cones turned modern Bordeaux into one more anonymous, look-alike, “full-bodied” red wine.
This is one of the last of its kind: Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot nurtured in the same deep gravel as in Margaux, only a kilometer away; with no new wood and only 12.5% alcohol. So instead of brutish power, this graceful, aristocratic wine offers a mouth-filling core of sweet black fruit wrapped in a perfumed nose that suggests fresh white tobacco, violets, and earth – with a silky, elegant finish that goes on and on.
Château Guittot-Fellonneau was a Moore Brothers classic until it became unavailable three years ago. Many of you still ask about it, so I’m writing to let you know that it has returned to Moore Brothers.
Guy Constantin:
During their entire life together, Guy and Maryse Constantin operated a comfortable ferme-auberge in the village of Macau, across the road from the entrance to Château Cantemerle. The vineyard was Guy’s passion, but there were only four hectares, so it always took second place to the restaurant. Besides, it was Maryse’s cooking that was better known in Macau.
When she died in 2006, Guy closed the restaurant, and sold his vines to neighboring Château Cambon la Pelouse. But he kept the cellar and the wine that remained, as a hedge for his retirement. Today he works with a young vigneron in Macau, helping him establish his own estate, where traditional Bordeaux like this will be made in the future.
This wine:
In the glass, the wine has a deep garnet color, dark in the center, with flashes of red near the edge. The nose unfolds slowly with ripe black currants, walnuts, tobacco, and violets. On the palate, the wine is both concentrated and weightless, with ripe, mouth filling, sweet black fruit flavors, framed by submerged, fine-grained ripe tannins. Perfectly integrated fruit acidity carries the flavors through an elegant, long finish. And give it time after you pour it; this is another textbook lesson on how fine wine evolves in the glass. Drink now – 2025.
As always at Moore Brothers, this wine was shipped and delivered to us in refrigerated containers. As I write, it tastes as fresh as every vintage I was privileged to taste at the ferme-auberge, including the 1976 and 1964, Guy’s first vintage, and one of the best ’64s in my memory.
I thank you again for your continued support of these dedicated stewards of our viticultural heritage.