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Every year, the Coupe des Crus de Saint-Emilion honours 24 winners.
These men and women work day after day to produce wines that live up to the quality and environmental commitment of Saint-Emilion wines.
Find out more about these properties in Lussac Saint-Emilion, Puisseguin Saint-Emilion, Saint-Emilion and Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, as well as the Grands Crus Classés.
Today, we meet Nicolas ROBL, manager of the JCP Maltus properties, which include Vieux Château Mazerat, a Saint-Emilion Grand Cru.
2024 Favourites – Vieux Château Mazerat
A wine that is still confidential, a new winery like a UFO that has landed in the middle of the Saint-Emilion vineyards and a garage spirit… Nicolas ROBL tells us more about this atypical Saint-Emilion Grand Cru wine and about Jonathan Maltus, an Englishman with a passion for wine who decided to embark one a new adventure in the 1990s by acquiring his first plots of land in Saint-Emilion.
I’m the manager of Mazerat and the other properties in the JCP Maltus Group. My main role is to oversee the production and marketing of the wines, which means that our group is unique in that we market our wines ourselves and don’t go through the Bordeaux marketplace.
In 3 words: garagiste, plot-based and harmony.
What makes us special is not only the uniqueness of the terroir and plot, but also the way we vinify these wines: we only keep a maximum of 4 grapes per vine to ensure optimum concentration. We often harvest very late compared with our dear neighbours, but to really favour optimum ripeness, even if it means losing a little volume, but we’re really looking for the precision and harmony that characterise this cru.
So in the 90s, Mr Maltus decided to settle in Saint-Emilion because he rightly considers it to be the Formula 1 of French wine. And what better place to produce wine than Saint-Emilion in France! So he started out with very little land and, over the years, developed one of the largest estates in the appellation in terms of surface area, while always retaining the “garagiste’s “philosophy, parcel-based wine and wine that is atypical for the appellation.
Vieux Château Mazerat can be enjoyed just as well in its youth, when the Merlot gives it a lovely fruity, smooth quality, as in 10-15 years, or even longer, when the complexity and finesse of the wine’s ageing will come to the fore.
I advise you to drink it for special occasions, for meals that are a little exceptional, but with a traditional meal. I’d go for it with roast chicken and duck fat chips, for example!
To be perfectly honest, we had already taken part in the Coupe des Crus de Saint-Emilion in 2023 and had failed to finish at the foot of the podium. But as it’s part of our philosophy to always persist and not stop until we’ve achieved something, we decided to take part again this year and it paid off!
We’re very proud to be part of this year’s winners, and above all we’re proud of the recognition we’ve received for our work and the work of our teams, because we’ve always been a little under the radar. So it’s a real recognition in the microcosm of Bordeaux and Saint-Emilion.
Now that our new UFO-shaped winery has landed in the middle of Saint-Emilion, it would be a shame not to come and visit and discover this exceptional environment. Come and discover these wines, which are still confidential but shouldn’t remain so for long!
