Stephen Carrier on Harmony in Mature Red Bordeaux

Few people understand what distinguishes the red wines of Bordeaux from their New World counterparts better than Stephen Carrier, the winemaker at Château de Fieuzal in Pessac-Léognan. The son of grape growers from Champagne, Stephen began his career as the winemaker for Newton Vineyard in the Napa Valley before honing his skills crafting Bordeaux blends at Château Lynch-Bages in Pauillac. Here he shares his passion for mature red Bordeaux.

Sophie Menin:  What makes for a great red Bordeaux?

Stephen Carrier:  In one word? Time.

SM:  We’re surprised you didn’t say vintage or terroir.

SC:  Bordeaux has sixty appellations each with a distinctive terroir. Every year the potential exists for great wines to come from the Medoc where the presence of clay gives the wines the potential to be bold and lush, or the exacting gravelly soils of Pessac-Léognan, or the merlot based wines of St-Émilion and Pomerol. But in all these regions, the young and old wines taste very different.

SM:  How so?

SC: Young Bordeaux is like a bright child in need of a good education. It is alive with aromas of fresh fruit and spice. If you hold your nose to the glass, you will experience the heady scents of blackberries, red currants, tobacco and vanilla. I assure you that you will want to drink this wine, but I don’t recommend it. All you will taste are the building blocks of a wine that has not yet reached its potential. A wave of fruit will be followed by the drying sensation of tannins on your tongue and gums. 

SM:  What changes over time?

SC:  With time the fruit flavor grows deeper, the tannins become silky and aromas of spice and earth begin to dominate the wine’s perfume. This experience of depth, harmony and balance is what great Bordeaux is all about. Depending on the vintage, this transformation can happen after five, ten or twenty years in the bottle. 

Many wines go through an intermediate stage when the tannins have softened and integrated into a wine that still possesses the expressive bloom of fresh fruit. I like these wines very much as well.

SM:  What do you drink when you are waiting for the wines to mature?

SC:   In France we drink the less celebrated vintages while we are waiting for the great ones to come around. Many of the less celebrated years produce wines with more delicate fruit. These wines are less tannic and mature earlier. Right now, the 2007s are very good!

Challenging Conventions in Bordeaux

At 41, Stephen Carrier of Château de Fieuzal may be among the youngest head winemakers at a Bordeaux Cru Classé winery, but that has not stopped him from challenging the conventions of the historic appellation. The son of grape growers from Champagne, Carrier’s first job as an oenologist was at Newton Vineyard on Spring Mountain in the Napa Valley. Napa made an enormous impression on Carrier, who internalized the local habit of always questioning whether it is possible to make a better wine.

He fine-tuned his skills crafting Bordeaux blends at Château Lynch Bages in the Bordeaux commune of Pauillac. A few years later, Carrier took the reigns at Château de Fieuzal in the commune of Pessac-Léognan, where, rather than stick to a prescribed recipe, he makes wines that reflect the character of the vintage. In a warm year, like 2009, he uses mostly cabernet sauvignon. In a cool year, like 2010, he accesses a wider palate, adding cabernet franc, petite verdot and merlot. The wines are vinified in a new 40,000 sq. ft. facility equipped with oak, cement and stainless steel tanks of varying sizes. Carrier calls the new wine making facility his “kitchen” because it offers numerous tools for being responsive to the specific nature of each harvest.

The wines of Château de Fieuzal, both red and white, are value wines and a first-rate gateway to the pleasures of Bordeaux, a region that can be difficult to penetrate given the stratospheric prices of the top five chateau known as First Growths. The Fieuzal Rouge is opulent with firm tannins and aromas of blackberries, lilacs and woodlands. The Fiuezal Blanc is an age-worthy blend of sauvignon blanc and sémillon that exudes citrus and mineral flavors.

Originally puplished by Bottlenotes