hello everybody my name is jimmy smith and welcome to a wine with jimmy presentation on a wsct level 3 section this is a second part of a four part series on bordeaux so the first one was looking at an introduction to bordeaux pomerol merlot cabernet franc this one is looking at saint emilion and its classification system uh next door to it very important because they do tend to like asking questions on classification systems um so yes we'll go through the usuals we'll look at where saint emilion is in in terms of bordeaux we'll talk about the key parts of saint-emilion look at a quick video on google earth talk a little bit more about merlot just a recap and then we'll go through the classification system and a working written question at the end it's very important because the working written question is designed to help you realize the kind of questions that wset may ask you and then how you should structure your answer to really get the best out of your examination so we are here to help um just to reiterate that this is part of the wine with jimmy e learning portal where we have a huge wealth of multiple choice questions short written answer questions revision sessions flash cards and more members only video content on top of all of this free content please do go have a look at winewithjimmy.com and you'll be able to purchase subscription for the portal very much worth it if you are preparing for your level three exam okay social media is all at the bottom if you wish to get in touch or comment at any time please do so let's have a look at saint emilion and there is the beautiful place of saint emilion it is a a village which lies about two hours away from bordeaux city it is a unesco world heritage site along with bordeaux old city as well to the only two in the region so this really tells you the beauty and the historical cultural importance of this place called saint minion so we are of course once again in bordeaux in the south west of france it is on the dordogne the geron and then into the girond estuary around bordeaux city and we talked about this in the introduction on the first session 120 000 hectares of vines split 90 to the reds and 10 to the whites okay so um now let's get into the really important parts of this section we are going across to the right bank again um last time on the first video we talked about pomerol which was immediately to the north east of the city le bon we're now to the east of the city of la born and this red area centered around the town of saint emilion saint-emilion actually would be it's roughly in sort of the middle so i'll pop it in here for you so you so you're kind of offey of where it may be so let's just do that so it's about here so saint emilion and it has its wine region around it now it's fairly large it's our largest one of the right bank so we are required to understand a few things about this area it's not just one contiguous geology and one type of style there are many different styles produced here first of all there is the area identified as number one so this is our most north westerly point and north point of saint emilion this borders pomerol now pomerol is very much well known for having some more of these gravelly soils to produce these rather powerful wines some of the powerful most powerful merlot lead wines from bordeaux so therefore uh really just you know next to it is the same kind of area but in saint emilion so you'll find big similarities between the wines of pomerol and then the saint emilions that border it they are on warm well drained gravels um and a bit of limestone rocks as well and this is famous for cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon now we know that saint emilion is majorly about merlot but here uh very prestigious powerful complex wines similar to pomerol are produced from cabernet franc cabernet sauvignon the likes of chevelle blanc for instance chateau cheval blanc so that's the first part of this saint emilion plateau um down in the south and the east and this is really just immediately south of saint-emilion the the village town and just to the east of that we find some clays and limestones more dominated by merlot making quite prestigious wines again so this would be things like ozone which is immediately um just nestled to the south of saint emilion so quite famous again and then really to the south it says south here but you'll find some of this in right in the kind of north as well um but this is really the escarpment area um where there are sandia soils as it goes down towards the river and this is where most of the saint emilion sort of lighter wines are found so that would be the generic saint-emilion aoc wines for the most part but it's not all as easy as that there will be overlaps of course in this area so we're going to have a quick look at a video um so you uh know the area of course and you get a good google earth 3d view of this area so let's go through this it's only just over a minute minute and a half long and it goes through some of the key chateau you are not required to know individual chateau but i think it sets the rather beautiful and romantic scene that bordeaux can have with its majestic castles its chateau so um let's have a look there is france again and we'll go down to the south west of course to bordeaux where we clearly see the huge shipping estuary of the girond that's this big thing here and then we've got the dordoyn which is on the right hand side around libon where we need to focus on so there's the city of le bourne we looked immediately to the north east of that before with pomerol that's on the first session but we're now going to the east there's saint emilion okay so we're now going to focus on the area which would be immediately to the south of saint-emilion and this includes places like ozone and there's also chateau or jules just near here chateau ozone one of the most prestigious and powerful wines of saint located immediately to the south of saint-emilion and then quite close to that is chateau angelou another famous one very high up in the rankings of saint eminion then we're going across to the far side remember now this is actually area one which is on the border of pomerol this is shatter physique very famous for quite high proportions of cabernet sauvignon and then chateau cheval blanc very nearby it here uh with um with high proportions of cabernet franc um but mightily important and powerful wines nonetheless those ones there you go there's another look and look at the the work perfectly manicured laid out uh vineyards of the region great so that is the um the areas uh the key areas of saint emilion now just to recap um we just mentioned that there's cabernet franc and cabernet sauvignon and play but the major great variety still of saint emilion is merlot so merlot i'm not going to go into it too much detail because it was covered in the first session when we're looking at pomerol but with saint emilion wines they do tend to have a more core red fruit characteristic behind them maybe some of the area one which was on the border of pomerol will be a bit more darker and black fruited but certainly the areas on the escarpment area 3 generic saint emilion would be very much dominated with red cherry plum strawberry notes to it it tends to be the common character oak is very common here as well 12 to 18 months oak aging and the the lovely supple skins of merlot don't need to be overly worked like cabernet sauvignon and produce wonderfully full but soft wines that's a real sort of key way of describing it now something that needs quite a lot of attention because it's a very um liked question to ask by wset is actually understanding the system of saint emilion now on the first video we did on pomerol pomerol we did not go into a classification system because the wines are either labeled as pomerol or its sub district of lalonda pomerol but saint emilion has quite an intricate hierarchy of classification system uh which is separate to anywhere else including the left bank which has its quite rigorous classification system as well so here is your classification system now at the bottom in the payless color is the aoc of saint emilion so there are two aoc's uh produced here in in saint-emilion it's either saint-emilion generic that we're talking about or grand cru so the biggest production is generic saint emilion of course you could go into a shop supermarket and pick up normally for about 12 to 15 pounds i think a generic saint-emilion and they tend to be quite elegant quite light for merlot with red fruit characteristics so that's generic saint emilion has its own aoc then there are the concrete wines which have their own aoc system which is split into a four tier hierarchy as you can see here so there is grand cru there is grand cru clase and then we have premier quanku class a b-class and then premiere grand cru clase a class and really it gets very small as you get right to the top the ap class there are only four chateau that have that classification uh cheval blanc ozone or julius uh uh three of those four that we looked at the video earlier um now what makes these um better what than another one you know why is one grand cru why is one grand cru class say this is all determined with a number of factors including uh the historical um the hostile historical evidence of the chateau um the age of the vineyards the prestigiousness of the vineyards the wines will go through tasting panels there's lots of things that are taken into consideration and a key thing about this classification system is that it is re-evaluated not always in the most positive lights but it is re-evaluated every 10 years so it was it was first classified in 1955 and it has been reclassified every 10 years with some demotions and promotions of course this has caused quite a bit of bad blood so it has been a bit of a sticking point in topical debatable points about its classification system okay so it is important that you understand this and how to talk about it because um we'll go through a question in a second actually but it is a very much um loved question to ask by wset talking about this and it's often worth something like eight or ten marks in total just describing the saint-emilion classification system so make sure you know this okay here we go then there's a question for you so there's a label here of chateau angelus describe the classification system in saint emilion first of all it's not really even talking about this label at this point and this is how you put that into words the classification system in saint-emilion is integrated into the appalachian system and it's reclassified every 10 years like we just mentioned within saint-emilion there is a separate appalachian saint-emilion grand cru um which has its own aoc and it is of the best chateau they are from the lowest to the highest quality here so saint emilion crew clase um you should say actually saint-emilion grand cru clase premiere gran que clase b class and then a class premier guanco clase okay angelus was one of the recent ones to be elevated to an a class so it was a b class before that okay so um yeah make sure you do understand these it's very uh it's very important to uh to go through that what are the like what other what are likely to be the two major grape varieties in this wine um so you are required to understand that this is the right bank which is going to be led with merlot and then with cabernet franc not cabernet sauvignon angelus does have a fair proportion of cabernet sauvignon in fact in its wine like fishiac as well but you are just really talking about merlot and cabernet franc in this instance and then for five marks how would you describe this wine so this is really um understanding the grape is merlot and cabernet franc and this is what's taken from your textbooks it's likely to be a full bodied wine and that's really due to merlot and its higher alcohols here with medium to high tannins soft and rich mouth feel with complex red berry fruit and plum developing tobacco and cedar notes as it ages now the medium to high tannins that are soft and quite rich is due to the fact that merlot has quite supple tannins and supple skins um so it doesn't produce the most angular or astringent styles like its brother cabernet sauvignon wood um and the red fruit is due to merlot here it is not as overworked or as late picked often as pomerol and then of course tobacco earthy cedar um cigar notes with a bit of age so that is quite quite a typical thing to talk about there okay i think that is actually it this is a much shorter video but it really is about that classification system that we want you to clearly uh clearly understand because it's a very very much focused point uh with wset so i hope you've enjoyed this shorter video than normal but remember it is only the second part of four videos of bordeaux and we are um yeah we'll be looking next time at the left bank and cabernet sauvignon so please make sure that you tune in for that i hope you've enjoyed the session i hope you found it useful for your level three studies and just remember that there is the wine with jimmy e learning portal that you can go onto the website www.winewithjimmy.com uh you could buy a subscription for the level three and give you huge access to a lot of a lot of things to help you for your examination if you have any comments or questions please pop them in the comments section below this video on youtube or you can get in touch via social media as is up there at wine with jimmy across uh twitter instagram and facebook the two wine schools west london wine school south london wine school and stretton winehouse as well next time you're in london come and see us for a class a glass or a bottle it's been a pleasure i've been jimmy smith thank you