Château Fleur Haut Gaussens was founded in 1941, and has remained in the Lhuillier family for four generations. Hervé Lhuillier took over the estate in the late 1990s, continuing to draw on advice from his parents, who had run it for nearly 50 years before him. The 30- to 40-hectare vineyard sits on clay-limestone soils near Fronsac, in the village of Vérac on Bordeaux's right bank, and Hervé has built a reputation as one of the Bordeaux Supérieur appellation's rising stars, producing wines built to age in the style of the region's classified growths. "La Viminière" is a 100% Malbec, launched in 2015 as the estate's first single-varietal wine, sourced from an early-ripening terroir and shaped by careful plot selection and modern vinification techniques. This 2018 vintage came from a challenging growing season marked by early mildew pressure, followed by a dry, sunny stretch from August through October that brought the fruit to full ripeness. Expect notes of crushed tobacco, blackberry, pepper, and blueberry, with a dense, rich palate balanced by bright acidity and firm, well-structured tannins, built for roughly a decade of aging. The result is a rare and distinctive Bordeaux expression of Malbec, a grape once common in the region but now seldom bottled alone.
