Roquette & Cazes

Supplier/Importer: Cazes

Region: Portugal

Appellation: Alentejo

TWO FAMILIES, ONE PROJECT TO PRODUCE GREAT WINES

The Roquette & Cazes project represents, above all, the coming together of two friends, Jorge Roquette from Quinta do Crasto and Jean-Michel Cazes from Château Lynch-Bages.

In 2002, these two families decided to set up a company to produce great wines that would be distinguished by the natural characteristics of the Douro Valley and by the experience of the Cazes, who have been producing wines in Bordeaux for nearly a century.

A wine-making adventure
“Making a great wine using the Douro grape varieties, a wine with body and complexity which combines the power and the sun of Portugal with the elegance and finesse of Bordeaux” said Jean-Michel Cazes about this adventure.

Roquette Family

There were two major challenges:

– to respect the character of the Douro so as not to lose the local feel and touch;
– to bring two different teams of winemakers together that speak different languages and work 1,000 km apart from each other.

This is how Xisto – Roquette & Cazes 2003, the first wine of this project, was born. The wine was released at Vinexpo 2005 and was included in the “Top Ten” and in the “Les 3 Exceptionnels” category by the jury “Découvertes 2005″, giving Xisto – Roquette & Cazes 2003 immediate world-wide exposure.

After three successful vintages of Xisto – Roquette & Cazes, the two families decided to create another wine, giving birth to Roquette & Cazes 2006. This wine took the teachings of its elder brother Xisto – Roquette & Cazes. Equally elegant, fine, with depth, but was allowed to age more time in the bottle in order to be ready to drink when released.