Chateau Haut Beyzac    

Emmanuelle

Emmanuelle (‘Manu’) Raguenot is the daughter of winegrowers in the Côtes de Blaye, a minor Bordeaux district. After a couple of years of English courses at the University, she decided that she wanted to visit the U.S. and work in the wine business. Friends of her parents knew people at the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Over the objections of her parents and her boyfriend, arrangements were made for a one year job, starting in September, 1994.

Ten years later, her parents are delighted that she went; her ex-boyfriend is not.

While here, Manu met Daren Miller, a pure-bred, corn-fed, all-American farm boy working at Naylor, one of Pennsylvania’s commercial wineries. Her parents didn’t lose a daughter, they gained an American son who moved back to Bordeaux with his bride in May, 1996.

The Vineyard

Unlike the U.S., you can’t simply plant a vineyard in France. In an effort to stem overproduction, the European Union regulates plantings. Rights to plant are expensive and are bought, sold and traded like commodities. However there are exemptions for ‘jeunes agriculteurs’ – young farmers. Emman-uel and Daren, her sister Marie-Pierre and her sister’s husband Eric Lallez applied for and were granted such an exemption. They tackled a huge project – the replanting of 80 acres in the Haut-Medoc. The vineyard is in Vertheuil, bordering the famous village of Saint-Estèphe. Like much of Saint-Estèphe, soils include clay and limestone, with some of the gravel for which the Médoc is more generally known.

The soils over the 80 acres are widely varied. In the first three years, 60 acres were planted, 30 to Cabernet Sauvignon, 24 to Merlot and 6 to Petit Verdot. The Cabernet and Petit Verdot are on the parcels with limestone and some gravel, the Merlot on red, iron-bearing clay.

Petit Verdot Digression

This is a little-known varietal but one that has been an important component of the best Bordeaux for centuries. For the first half of the Médoc’s vineyard history, until the early 1800’s, it was one of the principal red varietals.

Petit Verdot wines seem like a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. The grapes are even darker and thicker skinned than Cabernet. The wines have a spicy, peppery component not unlike Syrah. However there are drawbacks to Petit Verdot. The wines can be very tannic, needing extensive ageing. The other major drawback is that it is a very late ripener, even later than Cabernet Sauvignon. In the marginal climate of Bordeaux, in colder years it simply doesn’t achieve full maturity, a double-whammy when considering its inherently tannic qualities.

After WW II, many Bordeaux Chateaux abandoned Petit Verdot entirely. However it remains a component of all of the 1st growths, and many top Chateaux such as Leoville Las Cases are growing more of it. For the Miller and Lallez families to devote 10% of their vineyard to this varietal is a strong statement that they are very serious about quality.

The Kids

They are smart and hardworking, but they planted at a time when the world economy and wine consumption were both sky-high. By the time of their first harvest in 2001, the world economy was in the doldrums and French wine consumption, after a few stable years, was declining rapidly. Getting their wines out into the market has been a huge task. They are tireless about attending the urban wine fairs where growers haul a trailer-load of a few hundred cases to a show, pull corks and hope to bring the trailer back empty (except for the wines they’ve swapped with growers from other regions).

Many top Chateaux pride themselves on their severe selections for the ‘Grand Vin’, sometimes as little as 50%. At Haut Beyzac, the situation is the opposite. With total production of 9000 cases from a new vineyard, a base of inexpensive wine is crucial to sales. ‘Grand Vin’ accounts for barely 10% of the production!

Haut-Medoc du Haut Beyzac
This is a lush yet firm, completely unoaked blend of 75% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes are fully destemmed. Fermentation lasts about 10 days, the wine is left on the skins for another 10. After about a year in tank, the wine is bottled without filtration. Yields are about 3 1/2 tons per acre, just under 4 for the Merlot, barely 2 1/2 for the Cabernet. There are 6000 cases.

I Second Haut Beyzac
From better terroir, this is a blend of 60% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon. Bunches destined for this bottling are hand-sorted before destemming. After a 10 day fermentation, the wine stays on the skins for another two weeks. Ageing is 12 months in French oak, 1/3 new, one year and two year. The oak is discreet, the wine is full of blackcurrant flavors, with an unusual opulence for a 2nd wine. Yields are 3 tons/acre, just over 3 1/2 for the Merlot, barely 2 for the Cabernet. Production is 2000 cases.

Grand Vin du Chateau Haut Beyzac
From the finest terroir of the property, this wine is a blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 10% Petit Verdot. Again there is hand-sorting and complete destemming. The 10 day fermentation is followed by another 20 days of maceration. The wine is aged 12 months in 2/3 new French oak barrels where malolactic fermentation takes place. The remaining third spends its 12 months in one year old French barrels. Yields are 2 1/2 ton/acre less than 3 tons for the Merlot, less than 2 tons for the Cabernet and barely a ton for the Petit Verdot! This wine competes easily and gracefully with many of the Medocs famous Classified Growths.

Starting from scratch, the young team has produced an instant classic.

The Commitment

My hat is off to these two young couples, but especially to Daren Miller, a true American pioneer. He has moved half a world away from family and friends, devoting his life to a back-breaking, high-risk project. It is a tough time for the French wine industry, Bordeaux in particular. There has been a steady stream of bankruptcies and experts in the trade estimate that a quarter of Bordeaux’s 250,000 acres of vines will be uprooted wihin a decade.

So far, sales for Haut Beyzac are good and the wines are winning medals in the Bordeaux competitions. There is a lifetime of hard work ahead for all of them, but the talent, brains and energy are there in abundance. They will succeed.