When thinking about Bordeaux and its wines, perhaps a few clichés come to mind, the first being that the wines are too expensive. But not all of the wines from Bordeaux have triple digit price tags. In fact, the “classified growths” (those ranked in 1855 as the top wines of the region) are a mere 3% of the region’s total wine production.

Beyond the legendary wines, many great values — and more importantly, excellent wines — can be found in Bordeaux, even from the Médoc, home to the most renowned châteaux. One of them is Château Phélan Ségur, a longtime favorite of mine. I first met Véronique Dausse, the estate’s managing director, in 2013 while working for Sherry-Lehmann, and have been a fan of her and her wines ever since. I finally had a chance to sit down and interview her, alas by phone due to Covid-19.

I hope you enjoy reading the following excerpt of my article and Q&A with Dausse on GrapeCollective.com.

Véronique Dausse and the Wines of Château Phélan Ségur

**The author with Véronique Dausse at Château Phélan Ségur**

The Médoc region of Bordeaux, with its fancy châteaux, designer-clad winery owners and wines with triple and quadruple-digit price tags has, understandably, a reputation as an intimidating place. But, while the region is defined by traditions that stretch back over 20 centuries, the wine producers of the Médoc, by and large, are surprisingly down-to-earth. Take Veronique Dausse. Managing director of Château Phélan-Ségur, in the Saint-Estèphe appellation, Dausse is warm and friendly, with an easy laugh, and couldn’t be a more welcoming ambassador for the winery. She radiates an infectious enthusiasm for her wines and says that some of her happiest moments come from sharing them with customers around the world.

As might be expected, Dausse’s passion is for good reason. “This is a definite star in the appellation,” says Jane Anson in her new book, Inside Bordeaux, “a former Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, and in my mind would make it into a new version of the 1855 classification if one ever came around (which it won’t).” Surprisingly, Phelan Segur's wines are not in the unattainable category; their top Grand Cru Classé wine can easily be found for under $50.

Founded in the late 1860s by Bernard Phelan, of Irish origin, the estate’s stately, neo-Palladian château sits proudly upon one of the highest hills of St-Estèphe, the most northerly of the Médoc appellations. The property includes a large manicured field that slopes down towards the Gironde river, a defining feature of this famous wine region. The winery’s seventy hectares are divided into four distinct plots, some of them bordering the famous properties of Montrose and Calon-Segur. In its 150+ years, the estate has been owned by only five families, with Philippe Van de Vyvere, a Belgian shipping magnate and lifelong lover of Bordeaux, the owner since 2017.

Dausse, who came on board in 2010, brought with her a new and endless energy, and under her direction the domain continues to evolve with modern methods adapted in both the vineyards and cellar. Always looking towards the health of her vines, in 2012, Dausse began experimenting with organic farming, slowly adding more plots year after year. The vineyards surrounding the château are now farmed entirely organically, aided by the use of digital crop sensors which help to avoid, or at least lessen, vineyard treatments.

Dausse works closely with Fabrice Bacquey, winemaker at the estate for 25 years, to make the most terroir-expressive wines as possible. In the cellar, Bacquey uses state-of-the-art equipment to de-stem and sort the newly harvested grapes, but also holds onto an ancient way of racking the wines by candlelight to monitor each individual barrel while gently removing its sediment.

The majority of Saint Èstephe wines, an area with lightly gravelly soil atop a layer of clay and limestone, are intense, with strong tannins that can take years to settle down. Yet Phélan Ségur is known for producing silky-textured wines with soft tannins that still retain the incredible ageworthiness of a powerful wine. In her book, Anson delivers high praise for the wines of Phélan Ségur, "You can expect huge consistency - always a mark of a great estate - and plenty of character: finessed tannins, cassis, menthol and eucalyptus notes, excellent aging ability and a raft of complex flavors."

Read the full Q&A here