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Wine Description
The Story
The call of faraway lands. As mysterious and intriguing as a lone adventurer returning from a solitary sail, Cos d’Estournel is slow to reveal itself. Little by little, it evokes stories of distant places, market stalls brimming with unfamiliar fruits, spices and wares, village festivities warmed by the joy of revelers and the setting sun, and sumptuous visions of ladies and their voluptuous curves. A myriad of scents, colors and tastes appeals to the senses. The Grand Vin of Cos d’Estournel is both demure and deliberately sensuous, a fascinating and elegant nectar.
The vineyard of Cos spreads around the château on 91 hectares.The Cabernet Sauvignon vines (60% of the vineyard) find the soil of their choice in the thin layers of gravely soil situated on the top and on the southern slopes of the hill. On the other hand, the Merlot vines (40% of the vineyard) excel on the eastern slopes and on the slopes where the Saint-Estephe limestone bed shows on the surface.
The percentage of Cabernet and Merlot varies from one vintage to another according to the year weather conditions, benefiting successively to the one or the other. Plantation is extremely dense (8000 to 10000 vines per hectare) and the average age of the vineyard is high (35 years old on the average) in order to enable the roots to extend excessively and to obtain a very slender yield per vine that will create the « Grand Goût »
Each vine grower is in charge of 45 000 vines on which they have got to undertake various labours every year. These cultural tasks are for most of them done manually. The harvest is of course manually picked too. And it is by hand that the grapes, once collected in special wooden baskets, will be strictly selected.
Vintage 1981
Bordeaux 1981 /Le petit mais de grande qualité millésime de 1981 a été éclipsé par le superbe 1982. Le temps chaud et sec a commencé à partir de la floraison et s’est maintenu jusqu’en septembre, lorsque des pluies occasionnelles ont eu lieu jusqu’à ce que la récolte soit terminée dans de bonnes conditions début octobre. D’une manière générale, les rouges produits étaient des vins élégants, moyennement légers et délicats dans toutes les appellations. Les blancs secs étaient de qualité moyenne et Sauternes en fait meilleur que l’année suivante 1982. Bien que cette année soit souvent considérée comme modeste, quelques bons vins ont vu le jour. Il s’agit notamment de Margaux et de Cheval Blanc.
