• Merlot (60% of the vineyard)
• Cabernet-Franc (30% of the vineyard)
• Cabernet-Sauvignon (10% of the vineyard)

St Emilion wines are traditionnaly blended wines made out of different grapes varieties, the three main being merlot, cabernet franc (otherwise known as bouchet) and cabernet sauvignon.

Each grape variety has a distinct personality due to its adaptation to the terroir (terroir being the combination of climate and soil). In order to reach the best quality, the winegrower selects the variety according to its cultivation characteristics to assure the best growing of the vine plant in regards to its natural environment.

Merlot

It’s the most representative (more than 60% of the planted grapes varieties). This early variety grows perfectly well in most of the Bordeaux soils and particularly appreciates the cool and damp clayey soils of St Emilion.

Its good maturing process provide the wine with color, good alcohol level (fullness), deep aromatic structure ( like brown and red berries taste), along with a soft rounded silky taste in the mouth.

Cabernet Franc

Mainly cultivated in the Libourne area, this variety stands for almost 30% of the planted grapes varieties in St Emilion. Having a moderate earliness, this variety is above all planted on chalky soils or on warmer soils texture (sand and gravel).

It gives wine an aromatic fineness with a slightly spicy taste, a freshness and a deep tannic structure allowing a high ability for ageing.

Cabernet Sauvignon

Standing approximately for 10% of the planted grapes varieties of St Emilion, this late variety is particularly well adapted to warm and dry soils (gravelly-sandy or clayely-chalky soils with a good exposure to sun).

It provides the wine with spicy notes and a deep, rich tannic structure which favours a long and harmonious preservation.

The St Emilion and St Emilion Grand Cru A.O.C. decree also authorizes to use two more grapes varieties : Malbec (otherwise known as Cot) and Carmanère. But malbec remains the only one to be still seldom cultivated.

Rootstocks

Ever since the ravaging of the phylloxera crisis undergone by the french vineyard in the late 20 th century, all grapes varieties have been grafted on stocks having natural tolerance to the insect living in the ground and responsible for the disease. Thus, todays vine plants are the result of the grafting of a rootstock (the taking root part) on a graft (grapes variety, aerial part).

The grafting is generally achieved by professionals following very strict specifications. The winegrower has been using plants certified genetically homogenous for years now : this is the clone selection. The use of these plants prevents from any severe variations of vigour or production. The winegrower selects the rootstock likely to give optimal vigour and production to the vine according to the planted terroir. There are different rootstocks more or less resistant to dryness, dampness, ect... The rootstock selection shall also take the chlorosis ability of some chalky soils into account to prevent from any risk of chlorosis disease. In St Emilion, the mostly used rootstocks can be the 101.14, the fercal, the 41B, the 420A or the 3309 depending on the type of soil.