2012 Chateau de Fieuzal L’Abeille de Fieuzal Pessac-Leognan 750 ml

“Top Tip” For Value is This Tip-Top Pessac-Léognan

Produced by winemaking consultant Hubert de Bouärd — owner of the majestic Saint-Émilion Premier Grand Cru Classé Château Angélus and author of multiple 99+ and 100-point wines — this ravishing release from Château de Fieuzal is unbeatable at $33.99 per bottle. For Bordeaux value-seekers, “my top tip for value in 2012 is Pessac-Léognan,” says Jancis Robinson. Take her advice and look a few miles south of legendary Graves First-Growth Château Haut-Brion to the vineyards of Fieuzal, which in 2012 produced one of the three or four most compelling bargains on the Place de Bordeaux. A remarkably age-worthy Pessac-Léognan of exceptional richness, elegance, and class, this is the sleeper hit of the vintage.

The centuries-old Château de Fieuzal was formed in the Napoleonic era and first owned by the noble La Rochefoucaulds. Its vines are spread across some of the finest gravel slopes in the appellation, excellently draining soils that also maintain and diffuse heat. Brenda and Lochlann Quinn acquired the property in 2001 and tapped de Bouärd, who has helped the château soar to new heights using his wealth of experience from Angélus. By 2012, the Quinns had completed a multimillion-dollar renovation, modernizing the facilities with new wood and stainless steel vats that enable parcel-by-parcel vinification. Grapes are picked and twice sorted by hand.  

In the 2012 growing season, six splendid weeks of blue skies and high temperatures spiked the maturation process until the fall equinox, when cooling rains returned. As Robert Parker pointed out in his vintage report, it would be the Right Bank’s Pomerol and St.-Émilion and the Left Bank’s Pessac-Léognan, which feature higher concentrations of earlier-maturing varieties, that performed most brilliantly — in some cases equaling or surpassing the grandeur of the great 2009 and 2010 vintages. In every year, a few extraordinary wines slip beneath the radar, available to canny collectors at incredible values. This is one of them.