Saint Emilion is small-scale and very different from the Médoc on the other side of the Dordogne and Garonne rivers. Saint Emilion has an pretty, rolling and green landscape. The chateaux are smaller and not as “aristocratic”, more real homes. However, there is nothing “small” about the wines. I have travelled in Bordeaux for many years. Inevitably I have a few favourites. One of them is Château Franc Mayne, a Saint Emilion grand cru classé, close to the town. On our Bordeaux tours, we always try and take our wine tour travellers for a visit at Franc-Mayne and it is usually one of the most exceptional and memorable visits of any wine tour. You will see why in this article.
But before diving into the story of Franc Mayne, let’s take you on a short visit to the chateau. Here’s a video from one of the visits with the first of many glasses poured over a long tasting and lunch with several different vintages. And some beautiful views of the estate and region:
Here’s a summary of what Jacques Guillot explains about some of the weather factors that influences the wine and comments on three vintages: Franc Mayne is a wine that you can drink already when young, but also age for many years. Thanks to its 90% merlot it has silky tannins already at an early age, typical for “the Right Bank” (where Saint Emilion is). It is different for the wines on the Left Bank with often have more tannins. 2011, at seven years of age (in 2018, the year the video was recorded), is perfect to drink, but you can keep it too.
2011 was a good year, but not an exceptional one. It has more tannins than for example the 2012 that is more elegant. The weather in 2011 was peculiar. Summer started already in March, which is unusual in the south-west of France where spring is often humid. There was a bit of rain in July, which helped. It was nevertheless a very early harvest.
Weather is of course important but it is not only a question of having a lot of sun. The vines also need water, but water at the right time. Normal rainfall in Bordeaux is 750-900 mm. 2018 (“this year” on the video), spring was awful with a lot of rain, but June and July was very good. A few millimetres of rain in September was also welcome. 2018 was perhaps not a “perfect” vintage but not far from it, outstanding wines.
So, on to the story itself:
This is a longer version of an article published on Forbes.com.
Of the 110,000 hectares that make up Bordeaux, Saint Emilion accounts for only 5,500. It is a small volume of all Bordeaux wine produced. But Saint Emilion is a strong brand.
Château Franc Mayne is on the famous limestone plateau, with a splendid view of its seven hectares of vines. The picturesque, medieval town of Saint Emilion is close by and can be reached on foot through the vineyard if desired. If you stand by the chateau up on the hill, you have a view of the estate’s seven hectares of vineyards. Here, at a reasonable distance from the road, it is calm, green and leafy.
Being on the plateau has several advantages. “We had no frost this spring and not even the difficult frost year of 2017,” says our host, Jacques Guillot. “We are high up; it’s a bit windy here and less humid.” After many years at Franc Mayne, he knows the estate inside and out. The soil varies on the seven hectares depending on the location: on the plateau, on the slope or at the bottom. Three different types have been identified, which, according to Jacques, contribute to the complexity of the wines. Limestone, clay, sand, and marl are found in varying proportions in the vineyard.
I have been to Franc Mayne many times over the years and sampled many vintages, both young and old. The wines are always delightful. Franc Mayne is a classic Bordeaux wine, with elegance, structure, and freshness. The character changes, of course. Different vintages have different styles. But some things are consistent. The wines are great even when young and retain their freshness for a long time. You can age them for 15–20 years if you want. But it is not necessary. However, if you happen to be in Saint Emilion, I suggest you visit the Franc Mayne shop, which is at the entrance of the old limestone cellar. There you can find some older vintages at surprisingly good prices.
Producing a superb, long-lived wine is not enough. The goal today is to raise Franc Mayne’s profile. The chateau has a new owner since 2018, French businessman Thomas Savare. He and the new director Pierre Arnald have big aspirations for Franc Mayne. The chateau has been a Grand Cru Classé since the creation of the Saint Emilion classification in the 1950s. Maybe they are aiming for a higher rank. In any case, a Bordeaux chateau needs to stand out and be noticed. Their objective is to rejuvenate both the local market and the overseas markets.
How much better can the wine get? I already think it is outstanding. But that is how the wine world works. A wine can always be better. Which, of course, is the right attitude. In 2019, they started converting the estate to organic farming. 2022 was the first organic vintage. A magnificent year for this organic debut. This push to organic wine has been driven by Sophie Mage, new technical director since 2018, with a previous experience of similar transformations to organics for Artemis (owner of Chateau Latour, Château Grillet and a number of other properties).
A restructuring of the vineyard is also underway. There will be more focus on the different soil types and how they are treated and blended with each other. This spring, they planted 1.3 hectares of cabernet franc, which in a few years will be included in the wine together with merlot. Château Franc Mayne has always, right up until 2018, contained 10% cabernet franc and 90% merlot. In 2018 however, 1.3 hectares of cabernet franc and merlot were pulled up. This plot has now been replanted with only cabernet franc. So, when these vines have grown a bit, the wine will have almost twice as much cabernet franc as before. And this grape gives something very special to a Saint Emilion.
Already the previous owners invested in small oak and stainless-steel fermentation tanks where different smaller vineyard plots can ferment separately. So, the wine cellar is well prepared for this new philosophy. Some of the tanks are completely open during fermentation so that they can do pigeage (pushing down the cap), which gives a good extraction of all the goodies present in the skins.
The small vertical press gives a high-quality press wine that is blended with the self-run juice to give additional body. “It’s a small luxury press that you can treat yourself to when you have a small production,” says Jacques. The wines are aged in 225-litre barriques, in larger oak barrels or in amphorae. The chateau wine is bottled barely two years after harvest. Franc Mayne 2021 was bottled in July this year.
For Franc Mayne, another advantage of being on the famous limestone plateau is its magnificent cellar, actually an old stone quarry. Here, limestone was extracted a long ago to build houses, chateaux, and churches in the area. Other estates on the plateau also have similar cellars, but this particular one is one of the few that you can visit.
The cellar is large, just over 2 hectares. “But only on one level,” Jacques points out. There are cellars with three and even four different “floors.” The white stone is beautiful and dazzling even in the dim light. You can see how the stones were cut in the old days, and it is easy to imagine the hard work in this rather inhospitable working environment, cold, damp, and dark. But an environment which is, of course, ideal for the wine. And spectacular to visit.
The chateau uses a small part of the large cellar for barrel ageing. “The cellar has a stable temperature all year round, 12-14 degrees C, and it has 85% humidity, which means less evaporation,” says Jacques. Standing in the cellar/quarry, we have two meters of limestone above us and up there, the vines grow on a thin layer of soil. During dry spells, they survive thanks to the limestone’s ability to absorb water like a sponge and thus act as a water reservoir.
The wines of Chateau Franc Mayne
In Bordeaux, sooner or later, the conversation turns to the pros and cons of different vintages.
A good vintage in Bordeaux is a vintage suitable for ageing. Today we rarely talk about bad years. The opposite of a good year is a light year, i.e., a year that matures faster but can still be excellent. “Most vintages are good, very good or exceptional,” says Jacques. “Exceptional means nothing anymore; there are so many.”
But of course, difficult years still happen, Jacques mentions 2013 and 2021, both with a lot of rain, fungal diseases, and a small harvest. But never take vintage charts too seriously. Bordeaux is big, and the weather varies more than a single number can show.
How long you want to keep your wines is individual, and so is how you experience an aged wine. A good quality BX wine can still feel young after ten years. Château Franc Mayne is a classic Bordeaux wine that ages with grace for at least 15 years, often longer. Many tastings at the chateau over the years have shown me this, and most recently in April, during a lunch with five vintages.
Prices from the chateau’s online shop.
Château Franc Mayne 2012, Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé
A classic merlot year that now, ten years later, shows an elegant and well-balanced character and a smooth and lovely fruit. A vintage that produced classic Bordeaux wines, which, Jacques says, was delicious to drink from the start. (48 euros)
Château Franc Mayne 2011, Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé
Beautiful, intense fruit, ripe red berries and still very well structured. Harmonious and balanced. Superb wine from a problematic year with summer temperatures and drought in the spring and early summer, and then rain from mid-July. But the quality did not suffer. The biggest problem for this vintage, says Jacques, was coming after the superb trio of 2008/2009/2010. (49 euros)
Château Franc Mayne 2004, Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé
Delicious wine, nicely developed, complex with the typical aromas of cedar wood. Classic Bordeaux in style. Lovely to drink now. (60 euros)
Château Franc Mayne 2002, Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé
Cedarwood, tobacco, dark fruit, and a good tannic structure. Very typical Bordeaux in character. Magnificent. (60 euros)
Château Franc Mayne 1993, Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé
This 30-year-old wine is excellent, with so many subtle flavours. It is still quite structured, although it is light in style, which seems normal for this age. Very complex and still fresh and very much alive. And yet, says Jacques, 1993 is not considered an exceptional year, “just” a good year.
Ilex de Franc Mayne, the second wine
Château Franc Mayne’s second wine is now called Ilex de Franc Mayne, and on the label is the large splendid oak tree that stands above the entrance to the limestone cellar. Previously, the second wine was called Le Cèdre de Franc Mayne, and the label featured the estate’s equally majestic Lebanese cedar.
Second wines in Bordeaux started to become the norm in the 1960s and 1970s. In Bordeaux, they traditionally make one wine – the château wine – and nothing else. The concept of second wines was introduced as a way to maintain the quality of the chateau wine by using grapes from certain, presumably slightly inferior, plots of land or from young vines for a second wine sold at a cheaper price.
Normally, the second wine is made at Franc Mayne every year, but exceptionally it can happen that all the grapes go to the chateau wine. It happened in 2022 with its amazing quality. It is important to take advance of the good times. Nature is not always generous.
Ilex de Franc Mayne 2020, Saint Emilion Grand Cru
The grapes for Ilex are picked from the lower part of the slope, where the clay mixed with sand produces faster-maturing wines. Round and pleasantly intense fruit flavours from an excellent and sunny year. Great freshness. To drink right away or to keep for maybe ten years. Aged in old barrels. (26 euros)
The chateau also has five rooms, elegantly designed for those who want to stay a little longer and enjoy the peace and quiet. You can even sleep in a romantic tree house in the big cedar.
Château Franc Mayne is a stylish gem. Keep an eye out for it.
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