2018 Chateau Abelyce St.-Emilion Grand Cru 750 ml

“It’s a jewel,” said our importer friend, Serge, as he poured the ruby-purple 2018 Château Abelyce into our glasses. “An absolute treasure of the Right Bank, and you don’t know how many years I worked on getting it here.” 

Once we took a sip of the luscious cocoa-and-plum-inflected Merlot that had our mind swirling with hefty prices, it became clear why he fought tooth-and-nail for an allocation from the estate, and why International Wine Report called the wine “a sensational showing.”

The 2018 is a complete steal compared to its St.-Émilion Grand Cru neighbors and peers, and it’s impossible to find in the US. The estate is tiny—just five acres are under vine—and barely produces enough wine to satisfy their rabid European fan base, let alone any importers for the American market.

St.-Émilion is the home of the garagiste movement that upended the Bordeaux establishment with tiny productions and astronomical prices in the 1990s, but Abelyce is small even by those standards. Amélie Aubert carved the tiny château’s vineyards out of another property in her family, with the goal of highlighting the unique soils of this corner of the vineyard: a prized mixture of gravel, sand, and clay that is perfect for growing Merlot.

Aubert’s focus on a single grape makes for a wine that’s different from the blends of her neighbors. Working with 45-year-old vines, she crafts a wine that walks the line between St.-Émilion’s power and Pomerol’s elegance.