Château Belair 1982

Château Belair (Belair-Monange) 1982 - 1st Grand Cru Rated

Tasting: This wine has already reached its full maturity. You can drink it now. It is a wine of finesse with a lot of elegance. Light, fruity and soft, this ruby-coloured wine has a pleasant texture and the presence of tannins is very noticeable on the finish.

Château Belair-Monange vineyard : Soil, grape varieties, vinification

The 23.5 hectare vineyard of Belair-Monange, located just outside the village of Saint-Emilion, is planted to 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc. This shows a big increase in the size of the vineyard and you also find more Merlot and less Cabernet Franc planted here.

The terroir is a mixture of limestone on the plateau and upper terrace, with clay and limestone on the slopes in their soils. Their best terroir is perfectly situated on the top of the limestone plateau which rises to 88 metres above sea level. They also have plots slightly lower down the plateau on the slopes.

The vines are on average 40 years old. However, they do have some old vines. Some of their oldest vines are nearly 70 years old as they were planted in the early 1950s and 1930s. They even have a small selection in some parcels with some of the oldest vines on the Right Bank, as they have vines that were planted in 1900!

The vineyard is planted at a density of 6,600 vines per hectare, although the new Cabernet plantings are at 7,400 vines per hectare.

They do not bleed the vats to increase concentration. Malolactic fermentation is done in the vats. The press wine obtained from the vertical basket presses is added or not during the elevation, and before the final blending.

The wine is aged on average 50% in new French oak barrels for 18 months before bottling. Château Belair-Monange produces an average of around 1,500 cases of wine per year.