Chateau Valandraud is represented by the passion of a couple: Jean-Luc Thunevin and Murielle Andraud. Following the great success with the wine merchant business in Saint Emilion, they opened their own vineyard to produce their own wine.
Château Valandraud started life in 1991, as one of the original “garage” wines, which sparked a trend for thoroughly modern Bordeaux wine styles made in such tiny quantities that they could be – and sometimes were – made in a garage. The man behind the wine, Jean-Luc Thunevin, was called the “Bad Boy” of Saint-Émilion by Robert Parker for defying centuries of tradition and making a highly stylised wine: bold and rich with lavish new oak (at one point it was aged in 200% new oak). Prices were as outrageous as the first wines, exceeding the First Growths on a number of occasions.
The 1997 Valandraud has a well-defined bouquet with earthy red berry fruit, iron filing, orange rind and touches of menthol developing with time. The palate is medium-bodied with rather scrawny tannin, fully mature herbaceous fruit with a leafy, rather autumnal finish that does not have immense depth, but at least has sufficient freshness. It actually improved in the glass and yet it never quite delivered that penetration or depth of fruit on the finish.
