2003 Rol Valentin

Like a number of his colleagues in St. Emilion, Eric Prissette told me that he would rather pick with rain and ripe skins than with dry weather and underripe skins. In the event, he harvested between October 11 and 18. The potential crop would have been 40 hectoliters per hectare, but turned out to be 28 after he eliminated the rotten grapes in the vineyard. He then bled off 30% of the juice. Not surprisingly, the young 2004 is a full 13.5% alcohol. "It's a classic vintage, but classic in a modern sense, which is to say very concentrated," noted Prissette. Most of Prissette's vines are in St. Etienne de Lisse, on argilo-calcaire, in a favored spot surrounded by the likes of Valandraud, Peby-Faugeres and La Fleur Cardinale. He ages his wines in all new oak, most from Taransaud but also some from Berthomieu.

Eric Prissette's 2003 Rol Valentin was a real sentimental favorite for me on my tour of the Right Bank, a remarkably chewy and ripe yet fresh wine whose technical parameters virtually defy explanation: 13.8% alcohol, which was higher even than the estate's 2000; a very healthy pH of 3.55; and acidity of 4 grams per liter, which may be the highest reading I heard on my tour of Bordeaux this spring. Following some recent purchases of land, Prissette now owns 5.5 hectares, and production of the 2003 should be in the neighborhood of 15,000 bottles. Just 10% of the wine will come from the sandy vineyard around the house, which is on the portion of the St. Emilion plateau that suffered most in the heat of 2003. This holding, which would normally account for 20% of the wine, yielded barely 12 hectoliters per hectare under the difficult harvest conditions. But the rest of Prissette's holding is in St. Etienne de Lys, on argilo-calcaire, where the yield was a more normal 39 hectoliters per hectare. "We could have picked on September 10, but we waited and waited, finally harvesting from September 22 through 29. We got a concentration of acidity; one rediscovers this dynamism in the wine." Prissette now owns 11 small cuves and is able to harvest like a Burgundian, looking for the best possible aromatic character, purity and complexity, and precision of tannins, in each of his numerous parcels.