Home Industry News Releases The 2018 Vintage at Malartic-Lagravière a Year in Two Parts, Resulting in...

The 2018 Vintage at Malartic-Lagravière a Year in Two Parts, Resulting in a Great Vintage. Perhaps an Exceptional One!

216
0
Advertisement

The year was characterized by two contrasting periods of weather.

Spring was particularly wet and warm, with record rainfall from April to the end of June. These conditions caused major concern for the vines’ health but, thanks to our dry gravelly soil and the extreme vigilance of our teams on a daily basis, the threat was very satisfactorily contained. Flowering went very nicely, taking place quickly and uniformly between the end of May and the beginning of June.

In early July, conditions changed dramatically. Dry, airy weather, with lots of sunshine, arrived for the entire summer, and continued into a spectacular late season. A few storms in August brought some welcome rain, and there were several extremely hot spells, but these did not have any negative effects on the vines. September started very auspiciously, bringing an incredible Indian summer. The white grapes were harvested from 10 to 24 September. The nights and mornings were chilly, but temperatures were still rising to nearly 25°C by mid-afternoon at the beginning of October. Perfect conditions for the Merlot and Cabernet to ripen, enabling them to develop refined tannins while preserving their flavours and aromas. The red grape harvest began on 26 September and continued at an unhurried, very relaxed pace until 12 October. Yields for some of the plots that were damaged by the frost in 2017 were a little low, and the berries were not generally large, but were of extremely high quality and very flavourful.

The wines have all the characteristics of a really great vintage, with truly exceptional density and depth.

2018 was a very hot year, but this had relatively little effect on the aromatic profile of the white wines. They have superb balance, tremendous freshness, and a distinguished, elegant character. The reds are beautifully crafted. The Merlot offers a sublime mid-palate, with a silkiness and density that are rarely achieved. The Cabernet is spectacular, with exceptional aromatic profiles and levels of quality. This superb 2018 vintage comes after more than 20 years of environmentally-friendly practices at Malartic, continually striving for the best possible quality. The vineyard’s maturity is now giving its full expression, enabling us to obtain remarkable precision on the palate and incredibly well-defined tannins.

Harvest’s dates 2018 : Sauvignon 10-19/09 – Sémillon 20-24/09 – Merlot 26/09-8/10 – PV 3/10 – CS 8-12/10 – CF 8/10

The 2018 vintage coincides with the 20th anniversary of Malartic’s new winery, that marked the beginning of the quest for enhanced quality launched by the Bonnie family when they purchased the property in 1997.

Since the first harvest was vinified in the new, entirely gravity-operated, octagonal winery in 1998, Vignobles Malartic has steadily progressed thanks to meticulous attention at every stage of the wine production process and ongoing investment in the property so as to obtain the most perfect expression of Malartic’s excellent terroir.

The central themes of this approach, implemented by the Bonnie family for more than 20 years, include a unique terroir, that is recognized as one of the finest in the region, a rigorous commitment to environmentally-friendly policies, developed with the help of substantial Research & Development resources, vinification facilities that comply with these high standards, based on a gravity-operated system, and extremely careful intra-plot selection in the vineyard, for both red and white wines.

Advertisement

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.