Organic Wedding Wines
French Organic Wine La Joly Receives 91 Points from Wine Enthusiast
Our delicious French organic wine Château de Lagarde 2015 La Joly Bordeaux Supérieur recently received 91 points from Wine Enthusiast magazine.
“Produced from a parcel of 50-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon, with a touch of Malbec, this wine is aged in large wooden barrels for two years. The organically grown grapes give a crisp purity to the wine, bringing out black currants, crisp acidity and firm tannins. The wine will age well, drink from 2021.” – Roger Voss, European Editor, Wine Enthusiast
La Joly is a very special French organic wine with a wonderful heritage and story behind the wine. The name translates to “The Pretty” and this wine certainly lives up to the name. The blend is 95% Cabernet and 5%
Malbec. While it’s unusual for a Right Bank Bordeaux to have a Cabernet-dominant blend, the Raymond family prefers the rich style the grape brings.
La Joly is named after of the plot. All plots on a vineyard have names based on the “lieu dit” place known, locality. That is also how most of the Châteaus got their names. The La Joly plot was named by the first generations arriving at Lagarde because it was beautiful land. It is also the oldest plot of the vineyard, the vines nearly 50 years old. The plot is a small parcel, so there is very limited production each year of this extraordinary wine.
La Joly Harvest Fest
In late October, at the end of the harvest season, Chateau de Lagarde holds the “La Joly” harvest fest. They harvest the grapes by hand in the morning with music and fanfare. The harvest is followed by a grand lunch for the workers and guests
who come from throughout France to join in the celebration. Harvesting with music is truly a great experience, it adds the ambiance and provides a very happy “joly” moment!
The wine aged for 24 months in all new French oak 400-liter barrels. Beginning at 22 months, the winemakers taste the wine weekly to determine its progress, and it is bottled at the peak of perfection.
The resulting wine is a deep purple hue, with a complex and delicate nose. The flavor profile consists of blackberry, plum, and cassis, with delicate floral notes. There is a distinct “lace-like” quality to the wine, having spent nearly two years in the large barrel format, providing the wine with a soft, yet round and supple mouth feel.
The unique conical design of the La Joly bottle is quite different from those common in Bordeaux, having no broad shoulders. This bottle is called the Eleanor bottle, named after The Duchess of Aquitaine, whom we celebrated on International Women’s Day along with Vignobles Raymond’s cellar master Elodie Gilles. As Cellar Master of Vignobles Raymond, Elodie is responsible for every aspect of production from the time the grapes arrive at the winery to the time the bottled wine is shipped out. She works with the winemaker, Yohan Lafon, to create wines that reflect his taste and style, while imbuing important aspects of femininity into the wines. La Joly is one of the outstanding results of this wonderful partnership.
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