Côtes de Bourg AOC

Sémillon

MAIN GRAPE VARIETY FOR SWEET AND DESSERT WINES This variety is used to produce both dry white and white dessert wines. Of the 6,300 hectares of Sémillon planted in the Bordeaux region, 2,900 hectares are used for dry white wines. This variety is also very productive (yields have to be limited by pruning).

31 %

• Likes limestone soil or well-drained Graves soil • In Bordeaux, Sémillon ripens at the same time as Merlot • Less acidity than Sauvignon Blanc • Adds texture, roundness and expression in mouth • When young it has more discrete and subtle aromas with notes of almond, hazelnuts, peach and acacia flowers. • We can see its capacity to age well notably in superior white wines matured in barrels

Sémillon’s qualities complement Sauvignon. When used in assembling it brings roundness and floral notes.

4%

Sauvignon Gris

This typical Bordeaux grape variety flowers earlier than Sauvignon Blanc with a thick skin and a light pink hint when ripe. It has elegant floral and muscat aromas with lower acidity than Sauvignon Blanc. It is generally used as an additional variety. There are 466 hectares planted with Sauvignon Gris in the Bordeaux wine region (+126% in ten years). We also call it Sauternes or Blanc Fumé in the Nièvre Region, Ahumat in the Béarn and Fié in the Poitou Regions.

4%

Other Varieties

SOME WHITE VARIETIES KNOWN AS AUXILIARY OR ACCESSORY VARIETIES ARE AUTHORISED IN THE DRY WHITE BORDEAUX WINES’ SPECIFICATIONS.

• COLOMBARD Originated in the Charentes area, it serves long wine conservation • UGNI BLANC (member of the Trebbianos family), originated in Italy and is very rarely grown in the Bordeaux Region (in the north of the vineyard) • MERLOT BLANC originated in the south west of France. Mr Guinaudie (owner in Lalande de Fronsac) gave it the name Merlot Blanc and the nursery man Jean Elie distributed it to the Blaye, Bourg and Graves vineyards. • MAUZAC is authorised in the Entre-deux-Mers requirement specifications.

FOCUS on Sauvignon One of the most widely used white grape varieties in the world is said to have originated in Bordeaux.

Sauvignon, it is said, originated in Bordeaux It is indeed from Bordeaux that the first young plants left to go to California. Well-known experts in ampelography (grape varieties) can testify:

“Sauvignon is a grape variety which originated in the south west of France”

Guy Lavignac. Cépages du SudOuest, 2000 ans d’histoire. (South West Grape Varieties, 2000 Years of History) Inra Editions. 2001

“It is a robust Bordeaux grape variety, with an average bud break, after Sémillon but a few days before Cabernet Sauvignon. ”

Pierre Galet. Cépages et vignobles de France. (French Varieties and Vineyards) Volume 2 L’ampélographie française. (French Ampelography) 1990.

“The name originates from French words ‘sauvage’ (wild) and ‘blanc’ (white).”

Pierre Galet, ampelography specialist.

The first allusion to the existence of Sauvignon Blanc was made in Bordeaux in 1736. The Abbot Bellet connects the variety with the Graves wine-making region south of Bordeaux in a document.

(source: Abbé Bellet, chanoine de Cadillac. Manuscrits de l’Académie des Sciences de Bordeaux (Abbot Bellet, canon of Cadillac. Notes at the Academy of Sciences in Bordeaux). Volume 17 1736). However, ampelography experts are not unanimous, some of them consider that the variety originated in the Loire Region.

They are all, however, in agreement that Sauvignon Blanc is one of the greatest white grape varieties which has shaped the character of Bordeaux white wines for several centuries.