The afternoon session with Stanislas (Stan) O’Byrne was coming to an end at The Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan.  He was showing some of the wines from his company Jubilee Wine Selections, that he introduced to the owner of the shop at last year’s En Premiere in Bordeaux.

The last of the French wines that we were tasting was Chateau Durfort-Vivens Margaux 2016, a Deuxiemes Crus (Second Growths) from the 1855 Classification of the Medoc.  The estate was one that was visited by Ambassador Thomas Jefferson, before he became the President of the United States who rated the chateau just under Lafite, Latour, and Margaux. Similar to many other estates after the French Revolution, the chateau had many different owners until it was purchased by the Lurton family in 1937, who also at the time had a stake in Chateau Margaux.  In 1962, Lucien Lurton bought the estate and in 1992, his son Gonzague took over, who revamped the cellars and converted the estate to organics and biodynamics.  They now have a range of wooden and concrete vats sized to specific vineyard parcels.  The estate is fifty-five-hectares of vineyards planted on deep gravel soils over a sand and clay base.  This wine is a blend of ninety-four percent Cabernet Sauvignon and six percent Merlot.  It was aged for eighteen months in French Oak, of which sixty percent was new.  A deep ruby-purple wine that offers notes of plums, blueberries, violets, lavender, and cedar.  On the palate there were tones of plums, cassis, black cherry, tinges of cinnamon and vanilla, with a nice long count of fruit and terroir.          

We then went and discovered Trinite Estate “Amaino” Sonoma County 2016, a California venture from Claire and Gonzague Lurton, which began in 2012.  They found a ten-hectare vineyard in the heart of Sonoma County, in Chalk Hill, at the intersection of three appellations: Russian River, Knight’s Valley, and Alexander Valley.  They had to basically start from scratch as there were no winemaking facilities on the estate, and the vineyard had to be partially replanted.  Amaino, refers to the volcanic stone or volcanic ash found in the soils in the foothills of Mount St. Helena, derived from the Pomo language of a local native American tribe.  The wine is a blend of sixty-three percent Merlot, twenty-nine percent Cabernet Sauvignon, and eight percent Petite Sirah.  A deep garnet colored wine that offered notes of cassis, black cherry, graphite, and minerals.  On the palate black cherry, plums, chocolate, almonds, black pepper, and pencil shavings, blending with good acidity, firm tannins, and a good medium count finish of fruit and terroir. 

The final wine of the set was Trinite Estate “Acaibo” Sonoma County 2016, a project that had G&C Lurton emigrate to California with their children for three years.  The “Acaibo” project, was Gonzague and Claire’s desire to create a great California terroir wine.  The soil is clay loam, on compacted volcanic ashes, since they are on the base of Mount St. Helena.  They also had to learn and to adjust to the different climate in Sonoma County compared to Bordeaux.  “Acaibo” is a created word combining California and France; in the native American Pomo language ACA refers to fish and water, and IBO means three and refers to the Lurton’s Bordeaux roots, the Bordeaux arms are three intertwined crescent moons, their three children, their three Classified Growths and the three Bordeaux varieties chosen for the blend.  The wine is a blend of seventy-two percent Cabernet Sauvignon, eighteen percent Cabernet Franc and ten percent Merlot.  All vinification methods are the same as practiced in Bordeaux and the wine is aged for sixteen months in French Oak, of which eighty percent is new.  A very deep garnet colored wine that offered notes of black fruits, florals, cinnamon, licorice, and minerals.  On the palate, a medium to full bodied wine that offered red and black fruits, harmoniously blended with chewy tannins, tinged with vanilla, cinnamon, espresso; and ending with a long count finish of fruit, and a saline terroir that calls for another taste.  Not that I am such a mavin, but in a blind tasting, I might think this wine was Bordelais.