2017 Château Coutet Barsac

Tasting notes

Pale, light in color. The nose is remarkably complex, offering notes of citrus (lime, candied lemon), ginger, and apricot, as well as white flowers. On the palate, the attack is beautifully lively with remarkable aromatic freshness. The crisp, luscious character is underscored by citrus and orange essence. The mid-palate is full and retains a pleasant creaminess. The wine is beautifully balanced. The freshness lengthens the finish. It is long.

Vintage Notes

After a normal start to the season, the Barsac vineyards were not spared by the spring frost that affected many French appellations. A light white frost on the morning of April 21 affected less than 10% of our vineyards. However, severe damage was observed on April 27, following three consecutive nights of black frost. 
Our highest-quality plots were preserved thanks to our teams, who stayed up all night maintaining protective fires. This enabled us to save 50% of our harvest. 
The weeks following the frost were decisive in the success of the vintage. We took particular care to remove every frozen bud in order to encourage the vegetation to recover.  May and June enjoyed very favorable weather conditions for flower development, and the work in the vineyard was particularly meticulous in order to mitigate the effects of the frost. The hot, dry July quickly led to early ripening of the grapes, reinforced by the heat and sunshine of the second half of August. 
A wet period of about ten days in early September encouraged the development of botrytis across all the plots. A very high-quality fungus was observed on our best plots, which had been spared from frost.

Viticulture

We began our harvest with a first pass on September 21, under bright sunshine. The first two selections took place between September 21 and 29, with high alcohol potential of around 22%, which was particularly encouraging. Rainy weather on October 1 and 2 disrupted the third sorting, but on October 10, the good weather returned and we were able to begin our fourth and fifth rounds, during which we harvested very high-quality batches. Our harvest ended with very high potential alcohol levels of over 23%.

Harvest dates: September 21 to October 18, 2017
Number of passes: 6, including 5 successive manual selections
(5 harvests and one cleaning)
Number of harvest days:    17

Vinification

Fermentation:    in barrels (50% new barrels)
Aging:    18 months in 100% French oak barrels
Bottling:     June 2019