Monday, July 20, 2009

Fleur Cardinale

Every year, Florence and Dominique Decoster organize a meeting to review the up coming vintage (we already know that the yields will be low) as well as past ones. The guests, which includes all he consultants, Richard, Jean Philippe, Bob and I, tasted the 2006 blind.

The same wines tasted 2 hours before were very different and even 2004, 2005 and 2006 opened the day before for a group of young Swedish sommeliers, friends of Andreas Larsson, were very different than the ones drank and tasted immediately. Especially 2005 which showed the immense potential of this great vintage.

In any case, it is getting much harder to find the smallest detail which would improve Fleur Cardinale, except in the vineyards where the Jaguar, recently purchased (a machine which seems to be in the habit to burn – as it happened twice in the area), with its 3 wheels, compresses less the soil and is faster and more efficient in case of emergency.

What’s certain is that the property has already past 3 levels of quality and that the 4th is much harder to reach: increase the yields while increasing the quality!

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