The Awards Keep Coming for the La Fleur Morange Estate

Chateau La Fleur Morange 2006 has been awarded the coveted Coup de Coeur in the The Hachette Guide to French Wine (Guide Hachette des Vins de France). There is only one Coup de Coeur awarded to each appellation and this is a great honour for this tiny winery. The Coup de Coeur is the highest accolade and refers to wines the tasters fell in love with at first sip, and they get their labels reproduced in the guide along their entry. Wine merchants often find their customers requesting a wine just on the strength alone of this award. The Hachette Guide is issued annually and is eagerly awaited by wine makers, merchants and connoisseurs. It's something of a bible as far as French wines go and has taken on a mantle something similar to the Michelin Guide concerning restaurants.

The Hachette Guide has been published for 25 years and is an independent and impartial, region-by-region guide to the leading wines of France, compiled by a huge team of wine experts. For the 2010 Guide the team blind tasted over 36,000 wines from 6,500 producers, of which 10,000 made the guide.

Each of the wines that is selected is given a rating: the wines included but not given a star rating are considered to be typical of the area and worth a mention; 1 star is a good wine; 2 stars is an excellent wine; and 3 stars is an exceptional wine and a perfect example of the appellation. Not all French wines are mentioned as some elite producers do not submit their wines for tasting and only one wine from each producer is showcased, however the Guide is a treasure store for wine lovers.

Château la Fleur Morange lies in Saint-Pey-D'Armens in Saint Emilion and is made by Véronique and Jean-François Julien. The Juliens started making wine from their 4 acre vineyard of 100 year old vines with the idea of creating something special from the outset. The soil is sand and clay layers over limestone and clinker sub soil – the only complex mixture known to exist in Saint Emilion.

The vat room and chai were designed by Jean-François who had decided that the malolactic fermentation – the 2nd fermentation after the wine ferments in the barrels - should take place naturally. Taking the idea that hot air rises Jean-François built a balcony high up in the rafters. So, unusually, if you wish to see the barrels you have to look skywards to see them high above your heads. This had the added benefits of using gravity to gently feed the pumps.

The Juliens are perfectionists when it comes to their grapes: they are hand picked by a chain of 50 pickers, de stemmed manually, the cage presses were purchased in Italy and the barrels are of premier French oak and are used only once as in the manner of the First Growths.
The resulting wines are full bodied and fruit driven, impressively structured and sophisticated. They are a deep dark crimson purple with notes of raspberries, liquorice, blackcurrants, smoke and earth. They age well and should be cellared to allow the wine to develop further in the bottle.

As Jean-François once said: “little by little we will create our own history” and I am delighted that the fruits of his labours are now starting to be recognised on a global scale.