2009 Château Clos Manou, 12-bottle Lot, Wood Case

Château Clos Manou was started in 1998 as a true garagiste endeavor. That was the year that Francoise and Stéphanie Dief produced their first vintage in the garage of their home in Saint Christoly de Médoc. From small beginnings they have grown to a 45-acre estate and have moved their cellar out of their garage and into a new facility. Clos Manou grows Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot with very small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The average age of the vines is 40 years, though one Merlot parcel dates to the mid-19th century, having miraculously survived the Phylloxera devastation of the late 19th century. Clos Manou is the flagship wine and Petit Manou is the second wine. Clos Manou’s charming label shows an elephant pushing a stack of wine crates, and the label notes that the image is called “les grands moyens,” or the “great work.” Reviewers have agreed that the couple has done great work with their wines, calling the wines “super intense, ripe…. powerful and fleshy.”

Médoc is a large appellation on the western side of the Gironde estuary. It stretches 50 miles and includes nearly 15,000 acres of vineyards. The region is sometimes called Bas-Médoc, or Low-Médoc, to distinguish it from the Haut-Médoc, the region just to the south. Practically speaking the Médoc is often used to refer to the entire Left Bank region, and there are numerous sub-appellations within the Medoc, including such famous one as Margaux, Pauillac, Saint-Julien and Saint-Estéphe. There are nearly 600 wine producing properties in the Médoc, and just over half are cooperatives. None of the estates in the general Médoc appellation were included in the Bordeaux classification of 1855, though many estates in the smaller appellations, such as Margaux, were part of that famous ranking. In 1932 the term Cru Bourgeois was awarded to 444 Medoc estates, and it was meant as a sign of quality. Since then the use of the term has changed and today it is awarded to specific wines on an annual basis, not to estates.