Château Falfas ‘Les Demoiselles’ Côtes de Bourg Rouge 2022

Location: France, Bordeaux

Winemaker: Véronique Cochran

Grapes: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon

From the Importer Selection Massale: Hailing from Saumur where she grew up in a winemaking family, Véronique and her husband, John Cochran purchased 20 hectares of vines close to the Gironde river outside the town of Bourg in the mid-1980s. These vines are surrounded by another 15 hectares of forest. Sadly, John passed away in 2009, but Véronique continues to make some of the most compelling wines in the area.

Véronique was one of the earliest adopters of biodynamic farming in the region, having converted the entire estate in 1988. This is no doubt an influence from her father, François Bouchet, one of the pioneering farmers, researchers, and authors in the fields who started farming his own estate, Domaine de Château Gaillard, using these methods in the 1960s. All work in the vineyard is done by hand, and occasionally with draught horses for light tillage, and the average age of the vines is around 35-40 years old.

In the cellar, Véronique makes use of old concrete vats as well as barrels of different sizes and ages. Macerations are usually quite long lasting up to a month with very little, if any, punchdowns to minimize extraction. As the chai is built into the hillside, it remains cool year-round allowing for slow natural fermentations to occur. The result are incredibly pure, supple, and terroir-driven wines that blow us away year after year.

‘Les Demoiselles’: A fresh and invigorating young Bordeaux that is raised entirely in concrete tank. The merlot and cabernet sauvignon for this cuvée come from young vines and it maintains just the right amount of structure to make it incredibly food-friendly.