2004 L'Évangile

"It was an up and down summer, and the work in the vines was critical," noted estate manager Jean-Pascal Vazart. "Eventually we eliminated less fruit than we thought we would have to: it was more a matter of a wide range of ripeness than of rot," he added. "The better 2006s are ripe, fresh and fruity, but others have green tannins." Vazart did only a minimal saignee of about 3%, but a bit more for the cabernet franc, which was picked later with more dilution from the rain. Still, the harvest here, which began with the young merlot vines on September 13, was over by September 26th The blend in March was a full 13.7% alcohol.

In this property's new cuverie, virtually everything can be done by gravity to protect the fruit. There are tables de trie before and after the destemmer, and the fruit can go into the cuve without being pumped. All new oak was used to make the 2004, and 30% of the wine went through its malolactic fermentation in barriques Actually, L'Evangile previously was forced to do the malolactics in barrel because they had only huge cuves In the new facility, there are multiple smaller concrete tanks designed to correspond to the specific vineyard parcels. Manager Jean-Pascal Vazart describes 2004 as a great year for merlot despite the large crop. Long hang time helped bring more complexity and tannic structure. "We thought from early summer that we'd be picking on September 15, but the cold second half of August really pushed back the start of the harvest by a full two weeks," he explained.