Château Le Puy

The château

The Amoreaus have been at le Puy since 1610, when they lived here and at Coussillon, 400 meters away, off vines and red wheat. Around 1830 they began the family house that still shelters the le Puy team. By the end of the 19th century the trade books knew them: Édouard Féret, the Bordeaux publisher, lists Barthélemy Amoreau at Le Puy in his Les vins de l’arrondissement de Libourne of 1897, among the crus artisans et crus paysans, at 30 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) of red and 5 of white, and in 1922 the Amoreaus are still there, at the Cru du Puy-Lavergnasse. Barthélemy (1844 to 1925) left notebooks in which he questioned the use of sulfur in winemaking. Paule Amoreau made the wine during the Second World War; her husband, Pierre-Robert, was one of the first members of Nature & Progrès, founded in 1964; and from 1990 their son Jean Pierre and Pascal Amoreau made wines without added sulfur and brought in biodynamic methods. In 2009 le Puy appeared in the manga The Drops of God, and in its television version the Emilien 2003 was declared the best wine in the world. In 2012 the family bought the first plots of Closerie Saint Roc, 16 hectares at Puisseguin that had once belonged to Amoreau ancestors, and in 2019 it brought back old varieties such as Counoise, Grolleau, Chenanson and Castets.

Le Puy stands at 107 meters, on a plateau of clay and asteria limestone above the Dordogne valley, and forest, meadows and a pond make up half of its land. Five horses work the soil; plowing is forbidden, the vines are treated mainly with plant infusions and horn compost, and the harvest is entirely by hand, without green harvesting or leaf stripping; the estate is certified by Ecocert and Demeter. The grapes are destemmed and ferment in cement vats with native yeasts only, by infusion; the reds age at least 2 years in used barrels and foudres, in cellars without temperature control, and every bottle is sealed with wax. There is no outside consultant: a family committee decides. Emilien comes from vines of 85% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, 1% Malbec and 1% Carmenère; Barthélemy is pure Merlot from the plot of Les Rocs, for which the family has asked the INAO for an appellation of its own, “le Puy”; Sémillon vines more than 70 years old on average give Marie-Cécile and Marie-Elisa.

At a glance

Appellation

Francs Côtes de Bordeaux

Commune

Saint-Cibard

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Amoreau family, at le Puy since 1610

Soil

Clay and asteria limestone plateau, at 107 meters Terroir of Francs Côtes de Bordeaux →

Grapes

Emilien: Merlot 85%, Cabernet Sauvignon 7%, Cabernet Franc 6%, Malbec 1%, Carmenère 1%; Sémillon for the whites

Farming

Ecocert and Demeter; worked with horses, no plowing

Cellar

Cement vats, native yeasts; at least 2 years in used barrels and foudres; no added sulfur in many wines; no outside consultant

Wines

Emilien; Barthélemy; Retour des Îles; Blaise-Albert; Rose-Marie; Marie-Cécile; Marie-Elisa

The house

Also Closerie Saint Roc, Puisseguin, 16 hectares