1998 Gracia

Michel Gracia employed 30 workers to harvest his 1.8 hectares of vines, then carried out a severe triage and destemmed virtually berry by berry for maximally ripe fruit. According to Gracia, the merlot had 14.4% potential alcohol 13 days before the harvest began; due to the effect of the rains, the fruit eventually came in at 13.3%. The wine had not yet been assembled at the end of March, and had not been racked since the end of the malolactic fermentation. Gracia was still stirring the lees weekly in his garage winery around the corner from Jean-Luc Thunevin's base of operations in the center of St. Emilion. I tasted all of the major lots, including merlot in various types of barrel; merlot in each barrel type, with lees stirred vs. not stirred; and a couple lots of 60% merlot and 40% cabernet franc. My favorite was the wine aging in Darnajou barrels, which are used virtually exclusively by L'Eglise-Clinet and La Fleur de Gay, and which Gracia used for the first time in '99. As a rule, I found the tannins more successfully integrated in the barrels in which the lees were being regularly stirred; these batches also displayed marginally more early fatness of texture. The yield in '99 was a tiny 21 hectoliters per hectare, a hair lower than in the previous year, and more saignee was done. There will be just 5,000 bottles of wine in '99. I also tasted several components of the '98, as well as a representative blend; the wine had been assembled by cooper but not by variety (i.e., each lot was an 80/20 blend of merlot and cabernets, the latter mostly franc).

Michel Gracia purchased another parcel of vines next to his original holding in the St. Christophe des Bardes section of St. Emilion in time to increase production of his micro-cuvee in 1998, but told me the yield was barely 22 hectoliters per hectare (compared to 20 in 1997, when he made just 12 barrels). Gracia, whose tiny winery is in the center of St. Emilion, just around the corner from Jean-Luc Thunevin and Valandraud, did six days of cold maceration in '98; beginning with the '99 vintage, he will ferment the wine in small wood cuves (previously he used temperature-controlled cement tanks). Virtually everything here is done by hand. I tasted the various components of the '98, as well as an approximation of the final blend. The '97 here was a worthy first effort, but the '98 is at a higher level of quality.