Château Fonroque 2015
Run by d’Alain Moueix
Technical Director Laurent Nougaro
Vintage weather conditions
2015 saw very clear delineation between the seasons. The rather mild spring arrived in perfect time after a cold, damp winter. A hot and dry June ensured good conditions for flowering. July continued the summer trend, allowing the vines to end their growth early. Finally, the storms of August and September kept this vintage from becoming too sunny, and balanced out the plant development. Harvesting began in mid-September and was completed within a month.
Harvest area*
17,30 hectares
Harvest terroir*
Limestone plateau and limestone-clay hillside
Grapes harvested*
92,5% Merlot – 7,5% Cabernet Franc
Harvest dates
14 au 28 September
Winemaking
Cultivation methods
Estate certified organic since 2006 and biodynamic since 2008 – member of Biodyvin.
Maturation
75% barrels and 25% in vats
Yield
44 hectolitres / ha
Production
66.933 bottles
* For this Vintage.
Tasting notes
The beautifully deep colour heralds a rich wine. Complex on the nose, combining opium, black fruit, violet and fireplace aromas. Juicy, fresh and caressing on the palate. It calls to mind precious silks and fabrics, but also rock and even water from the purest rock sources. The wine offers up notes of blueberry and old rose. Its mineral and saline finish lingers for a very long time.
Notes updated by Alain Moueix – 2017
‘2015 was a hot vintage with potentially rather high alcohol levels. At the beginning of the harvest, I had the 2003s in mind. I remembered how those who extracted too much tannin produced heavy, soulless wines, and how excessive oak resulted in dry wines. Memory, vital here as always, sometimes offers a steer with a consistency spread across multiple vintages. The materials were there, we just had to bring them in and reveal their potential without trying to change the face of the vintage.’