Jf JULIEN

A wine born of the Earth...
Located in Saint-Pey d’Amens (33), this tiny 3.5 hectare family property in Saint Emilion enjoys an oustanding terroir. Planted at the base of the slopes of ‘’Terre Blanche’’, the ancient vines benefit from a clay-limestone soil, rich in iron residues: an unusual alchemy which gives the wine an aromatic complexity that has to be tamed, measured and adjusted. Just to the point that on the palate the wine reveals its special character.
The history of Fleur Morange began in the early 2000s with 14 ares (1400 m2) of land and eight rows of vines…
A wine with a Soul...
This was a union of the land and of love. A union between a joiner from Saint-Emilion and the daughter of a wine-producing family, who grew up among the vines. The story of a craft learned through reading Emile Peynaud, and a delightful adventure which began in a garage in 1999 with a first year’s production of 900 bottles.

After ten years of striving for perfection, of constant care and unconditional love, Véronique and Jean-François Julien, the owners of Château La Fleur Morange, accomplished the extraordinary feat in 2012 of elevating this garage wine to the status of a Saint Emilion Grand Cru Classé. A handsome reward for their work…
From petit château to Grand Cru Classé
From 2012 Château La Fleur Morange joined the ranks of the Grands Crus Classés of Saint-Émilion. The Juliens have managed, through a combination of stubbornness and creativity, to produce this unique wine, whose primary characteristic is the skilful preservation of all the terroir’s mineral character. This rich minerality, combined with a touch of liquorice from the Cabernet Franc and the ancient Merlot vines, produces a powerful wine whose length, balance, and intensity in the mouth and fullness in the mid palate place it among the greatest fine wines.
The cycle of the seasons
With each season there are specific tasks in the vineyard corresponding to the various stages in the vines’ growth. The quality and quantity of the grapes is determined by the winter pruning. In the spring, the soil has to be aerated, excess buds removed and the fruit-bearing branches supported. With the arrival of the summer, the upper leaves are trimmed to allow extra sunshine to reach the grapes… until the autumn when it is time for the harvests. This magical moment is carefully chosen through a combination of instinct and technology...

“Vigorous growth is not always a good thing”, explains Véronique Julien, who prefers a small, higher quality yield. “No more than ten bunches on each vine, so that the grapes have more sugar and colour...’’
A “handmade” Grand Cru
After the harvests, the grapes are carefully sorted before being vinified with meticulous care. Château Fleur Morange’s wine is produced using white wine vinification techniques with red grapes. This more complex technique is unusual in the region of Saint-Emilion’s grand vins.
The tiny winery contains ultramodern truncated cone-shaped vats with temperature-controlled double skins, enabling very accurate control of the temperature during the entire fermentation period. This stage requires great patience with daily tastings in order not to lose the wine’s fruity flavours. It is a matter of taking one’s time, and drawing off the wines as smoothly as possible, with no vigorous action or pumping, relying entirely on gravity, made possible by high level barrels, benefitting from an ideal, constant temperature.
Finally the maturing stage develops the wine’s finesse and elegance. This requires two years in barrels, during which malolactic fermentation takes place, with sampling of all the barrels to monitor potential defects rather than quality.
Scrupulous care is taken at every one of these vital stages, to produce a unique, “handmade” Grand Cru Classé.
An outstanding Grand Cru Classé
“With its superb length on the palate, Château Fleur Morange has earned its place among Saint Emilion’s finest wines”, declares Jean-