Sometimes the best discoveries come from someone else’s challenges. When the Amoreau family—400-year owners of cult estate Château Le Puy—acquired Closerie de Pelan in 2022, they were buying a fixer-upper. The vineyards needed replanting, the cellar needed renovation, and original owner Régis Moro needed help after decades of critical acclaim but commercial struggle.

What they didn’t expect was the treasure in the basement: a near-complete vertical of Pelan wines dating back to 1999, stored perfectly in the underground cellar. Not a few dusty bottles, but real stocks, hundreds of bottles deep, of biodynamic Bordeaux that simply never found its market.

Régis Moro was kindred spirits with the Amoreaus. A painter turned vigneron who bought this 42-hectare property in 1984, he immediately eschewed chemicals and modern tricks. By 2008 he was certified organic; by 2013, biodynamic. The French newspaper Le Point once named him “Winemaker of the Year.” But in Bordeaux’s overcrowded market, acclaim doesn’t always translate to sales.

The 2010 vintage was Bordeaux at its apex. Parker wasn’t exaggerating—it combined the concentration of 2009 with the freshness of 2008, creating wines of massive structure yet incredible purity. Moro’s Pelan, with its 75% Cabernet Sauvignon from sand and silt soils at 50-80 meters elevation, captured this greatness without the extraction and new oak that seem to be everywhere in modern Bordeaux. It’s juicy, light on its feet, and like the Le Puy wines, super-drinkable.

Now, after 15 years in that perfect cellar, it’s ready. The Amoreaus tasted through the entire vertical and were stunned—these wines share a kinship with their legendary Le Puy bottles. Less ethereal perhaps, but the same mineral drive, the same refusal to follow fashion, the same haunting purity that makes this passionate family’s wines unforgettable.

WHY YOU’LL LOVE IT

• 2010: This isn’t a dusty 2011 or 2013 “barn find.” Renowned for their structure and longevity, the 2010s are in the pantheon of Bordeaux’s greatest vintages of all time. This wine is absolutely alive and singing, and it’s $54.
  

• Ironclad Provenance: For nearly fifteen years in a dark, cool Right Bank cellar, this was never moved, never disturbed. This is as good as library wine gets—ready to drink with a steak or a lamb chop tonight. No cellaring or waiting required!
  

• Biodynamic Purity: While everyone else was chasing points with extraction and oak, Moro farmed biodynamically and made wine naturally. You’ll taste it in this wine’s pretty, lilting, juicy red fruit—Cabernet Sauvignon from what is typically Merlot and Cab Franc country.
  

• The Le Puy Connection: Pelan is now owned by Bordeaux’s most fiercely natural, biodynamics-obsessed family, who recognized kindred spirits in these library wines. If you’ve ever tasted Le Puy, you know.

HOW TO SERVE IT

• Stand the bottle up for a few days, and there will be no need to decant. Serve at 58-62°F in large Bordeaux stems.
  

• Drink now through 2028. At 15 years old, it’s perfectly mature—resolved tannins, integrated fruit, that gorgeous tertiary complexity of tobacco and forest floor. But 2010’s structure means another few years of evolution ahead.
  

• Perfect with simple roasted lamb, aged beef, or mushroom dishes. The earthy, autumnal character makes it ideal for cool-weather cuisine. Also stunning with aged cheeses like Stilton.