Left Bank on the Right: Jean Faure 2007–2018
BY NEAL MARTIN |
I have always been fascinated by the three neighboring châteaux that lie along the Saint-Émilion/Pomerol “fault line”: Cheval Blanc, La Dominique and Jean Faure. Their vines conjoin, yet they all enjoy different standings and styles of wine. I’ve covered Cheval Blanc many times in the past; incidentally, readers can look forward to an update of recent vintages in the future. La Dominique was profiled a few months ago in my report, An Education: La Dominique 1989-2015. But I confess to being less well acquainted with Château Jean Faure. I visited several times when they hosted tastings for the Cercle de Rive Droite but never really got to know the château properly. I found the wines a little unpredictable, as you may have read in my report on their 2018s. That did not dissuade me from investigating Jean Faure further, and after speaking to the winemaking team, I found that my newfound insight reshaped my perception of this estate.
This aerial shot perfectly shows the line of Saint-Émilion estates that border Pomerol: from the top left-hand corner in the distance, Cheval Blanc, then La Dominique, and finally Jean Faure in the foreground.
History
Jean Faure is a historic estate that first appears on the famous De Belleyme map from the late 18th century. It was rated highly by Féret in early editions of the Bordeaux et Ses Vins guide. The 19th-century editions list two properties with the name. One is “Château Corbin et Jean Faure,” owned by Paul Chaperon, who was then proprietor of L’Évangile, and one is “Jean Faure,” owned by the Penaud family. One assumes the two Jean Faures merged at some point and Corbin cleaved away to form a separate estate. By the 1940s, Jean Faure had passed to the Loubat family, who owned Château Ripeau, and by the 1960s it was under the aegis of Michel de Wilde.
In 1976, Michel Amart took over the administration of the estate. He vowed to see Jean Faure reclaim its 19th-century status and sought promotion to Premier Grand Cru Classé. In fact, the opposite happened. In 1985, Jean Faure suffered not only an ignominious relegation, but accompanying scathing words from assessors that noted “notorious deficiencies in the running of your cru’s estates, principally as regards oenology… They are not of a corresponding quality to that of a Grand Cru Classé.” Ouch.
Current managing director Marie-Laure Latorre suggested that an acrimonious divorce distracted the previous owners from giving the vineyard its due TLC. Maybe that is true; however, I am not convinced that it is the only explanation. Demotion came only two years after Amart had acquired expensive new Alliers barriques and hired Michel Rolland as a consultant. Tasting a Cabernet Franc–dominated wine after a succession of sensual, rounded Merlot-driven Saint-Émilions can make it feel jarring, exaggerating traits of greenness. Assuming that the tastings were conducted blind (and I hope that is the case), I wonder whether this contrast threw off the assessors. After all, Amart claimed that no official had visited the estate. Whatever the reason, Amart lodged an appeal with the Minister of Agriculture, but to no avail. He would have to wait for the next classification.
In 2004, Jean Faure was acquired by Olivier Decelle, who had made a tidy sum in frozen foods and the music industry. Like his predecessor, he vowed to reclaim the estate’s good name; the difference is that he succeeded. Jean Faure was finally restored to Grand Cru Classé status in 2012. In 2018, Decelle appointed winemaker Marie-Laure Latorre, who had previously worked for a Bordeaux négociant.
Vineyard and Winemaking
To discover more about the estate, I arranged a Zoom call with Latorre and communications director Camille Poupon. They began by explaining how proprietor Olivier Decelle started to make changes after acquiring the property.
