Château Le Fagé Merlot, Bergerac 2022

Château Le Fagé is a brilliant Monbazillac sweet wine estate, and a superb producer of dry white, red and rosé wines. The pavilion-like château is very pretty, the vines sweeping down the slopes in front to the winery below, with huge views over the Dordogne Valley to Purple Périgord beyond. This is the fabled Côte Nord of Monbazillac – just a few kilometres south of the town of Bergerac – where climatic conditions for making noble rot sweet wines approach those of Barsac and Sauternes. Here the Gérardin family, led by Benoît with his wife Dorianne, have 39 ha of vines while they have a further 18 ha in the rolling country to the south, some from Dorianne’s family. The vines are up to 100 years old and often they will do four tris (passes) through the vines to pick the ripest grapes, such is the attention to quality. We discovered Le Fagé after detailed research during many holidays in the area and ever since have charted Benoît’s ascendancy in renovating the winery, replanting vines more densely and generally improving the wines. He took over from his father in the year 2000 and represents the family’s eighth generation in wine, the original name being Géraud until World War II when the son was killed, and the property passed down through the female line. Le Fagé’s is a super range of wines and very emblematic of this beautiful part of the Dordogne.