1999 Gracia

Michel Gracia harvested extremely late in 2000: from late September through October 13 for his merlot, and on October 13 and 14 for the cabernet sauvignon. The crop level was reportedly 19 hectoliters per hectare for the merlot and just 12 for the cabernet. The young 2000 is a more elegant wine than the '99, perhaps due to the fact that Gracia vinified the 2000 at lower temperature and extracted gently. He was still stirring the lees weekly in late March, but did no batonnage while the malolactic was taking place. There will be just 16 barrels of wine in '00, down from 18 in '99.

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).