Chateau La Gaffelière

Saint-Emilion Grand Cru

1er Grand Cru Classé B

last update : Sunday 27 November 2011

This Saint-Emilion Premier Cru Classé B has been owned by the Malet de Roquefort family since the 16th century - a record in Saint-Emilion!

The estate is located in the southern part of the Pied de Côtes ("foot of the slope") section of the appellation. There is a clay-limestone micaceous subsoil in the middle of the slope, and sandy-clay-limestone soil in the southernmost part. Benefiting from optimum sun exposure, the 20 hectare vineyard produced massive wines with strong tannin and moderate acidity until the early 90s.

Count Léo Malet de Roquefort's current aim is to make better use of La Gaffelière terroir to produce more elegant, full-bodied wines.

In the Bottle

Until the late 1980s, La Gaffelière varied greatly from vintage to vintage, and also suffered from a style often felt to be too powerful and lacking in elegance.

Since then, Château La Gaffelière has improved and become much more regular in quality.

Stéphane Derenoncourt's arrival as consulting enologist in 2004 has already proved its worth.

In recent vintages, La Gaffelière took a quantum leap, placing this Premier Grand Cru Classé B at the top of the Saint-Emilion list.

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WINE PRODUCED BY THE ESTATE

La Gaffelière, Clos La Gaffelière (second wine)

COMPARISON WITH AOC - SAINT-EMILION GRAND CRU

Vintage	Absolute score	Relative score to the Appellation	Standard deviation

2009	92.5	101.1	2.49
2008	91.3	101.1	1.96
2007	90.1	101.1	1.86
2006	89.8	99.9	2.66
2005	89.3	101.6	5.17
2004	88.6	101.8	4.87
2003	89.2	103.4	3.89
2002	84.5	98.9	4.24
2001	86.5	102.1	4.4
2000	85.4	99.1	4.07
1999	84.2	98.6	4.04
1998	88.2	100.2	3.61
1997	87.6	101.8	3.93

TASTING NOTES

Panos Kakaviatos - 09/2005

Not so dark a color and indeed another style from the above.
More subtle and very nicely structured with, again, cherry notes and again toast, but not nearly as rich.
An Indian Tonic flavor on the finish, but a bit hot on the back end.