History
The vineyard used to belong to a local postman who farmed it with great care, and the estate says it had never been overworked. Hubert de Boüard fell for it. He was born in Saint-Émilion in 1956 and grew up at Angélus, the family property for six generations before him. He believed Lalande-de-Pomerol could make wines as good as the bigger names of Bordeaux, and in 1998 he bought its 25 hectares. It has since grown to 29.
The estate sits on the slope facing the great vineyards of Pomerol, not far from Pétrus. The estate says it took nearly twelve years of replanting and reworking the vineyard to turn the idea into a known name.
Grapes, vineyards and winemaking
The soils are a mix: clay over gravel on the Néac plateau, and deep gravel with some clay on the rest. Merlot dominates, and each plot is picked and fermented separately.
The cellar is the thing visitors remember. Hubert de Boüard designed it with Arnaud Boulain, the architect behind Angélus's cellars. It holds 28 upside down, cone shaped vats that hang in the air, so grapes and wine move by gravity and never go through a pump. Wine moves between levels by lift, which the estate says was the first on the Right Bank. There's also a cold room for chilling the grapes, density sorting of the berries, a cellar held at 14°C, and a nitrogen generator that keeps oxygen away so less sulphur is needed. The wine spends 15 to 18 months in barrel and isn't fined or filtered.
Farming and how it's run today
The estate is HVE 3 certified and avoids chemical weedkillers. Between the rows it sows red fescue and green manures such as fodder radish and vetch. The cover crops compete with the vines and push their roots deeper. Birds and bats are encouraged to help with pests.
Bryan Dessaint, the technical director, was born in Épernay and grew up working his grandfather's vines in Dizy in Champagne. Kinga Hars came from Angélus to run the cellar. The estate also has an events business, a vineyard school and guest rooms. Its range includes Le Lion, Le Plus and a Chardonnay as well as the grand vin.
Wines we stock
Château La Fleur de Boüard 2014, the grand vin, by the case.
Château La Fleur de Boüard vertical case, with one bottle each of 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2016. That runs from the estate's early years under Hubert de Boüard to 2016.
