Unveiling Of Glenelly’s Flagship Lady May 2012

Words: Crush

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“The journey of Lady May started ten years ago, in 2008, when I was invited to visit May de Lencquesaing in France,” recalls Glenelly winemaker Luke O’Cuinneagain. “She poured me a glass of wine to taste. All I knew was that is was a special Bordeaux wine from her cellar. Despite the obvious age of the wine it displayed extraordinary finesse, freshness and depth. To my huge surprise the wine turned out to be an 1873 Lafite Rothschild, ‘the benchmark’, according to Madame, for the flagship wine we would be producing at Glenelly.

Glenelly’s Flagship Lady May Revealed

Four years later we launched Lady May, named in honour of Glenelly’s Grande Dame. 2008 was the first step on an exciting adventure towards producing a ground-breaking Bordeaux-style wine with great elegance and exceptional ageing ability.”

Glenelly's Flagship Lady May 2012

The crafting of Glenelly’s Flagship Lady May 2012

Lady May is crafted predominantly from a single Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard planted on a cool east-facing slope, with a dash of other Bordeaux varieties. Taking after its owner, the wine is elegant, distinguished and venerable. A sculpture of May de Lencquesaing by famous French artist Maxime Real del Sarte (1948), a wedding gift, adorns the label.

Having been set an enormous challenge by Madame, Glenelly have produced several highly-acclaimed vintages of Lady May, reaping prestigious awards, including a pinnacle 5-star rating for the 2009 vintage in Platter’s wine guide. In 2017 Tim Atkin, Master of Wine and co-chairman of the International Wine Challenge (IWC), paid tribute to May de Lenquesaing and Glenelly at the IWC Awards ceremony when she was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Anyone who has been lucky enough to drink a bottle of the legendary 1982 Pichon Lalande and to see the foundations she laid at the Château will recognise what she achieved in Bordeaux; anyone who has tasted recent vintages of her Glenelly Lady May red will recognise what she has achieved in South Africa. Few people make such a mark on two continents.”