Between Covid-19 lockdowns, I lunched with Philippe Dhalluin, former director of Château Mouton Rothschild. After pouring the 2009 vintage from a carafe, we pondered the proverbial fist in a velvet glove, sensing the wine’s inescapable tannic backbone underneath layers of opulence: so Mouton.
After lunch, we admired the just-constructed cellar at Château Lynch-Bages. Tastefully designed by Chien Chung Pei (son of the late IM Pei, who was responsible for the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris), it houses 80 fermentation vats, nearly double the number used for the 2019 vintage.
The 2020 vintage will thus more closely ref lect careful picking of vine parcels identified in a painstaking mapping of the château’s 100ha vineyard, says Lynch-Bages co-owner Jean-Charles Cazes.
Pauillac bustles these days with renovations and reconstructions at other estates, recent and soon to come.
Despite the changes, the wines remain based on Cabernet Sauvignon and gravelly terroir. Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot also make up blends. ‘But the very structure of Pauillac bears the imprint of Cabernet Sauvignon, which is predominant,’ explains Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy, who was appointed estates manager of Mouton, Clerc Milon and d’Armailhac last year.
Compact and consistent
Pauillac’s plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon stand at some 62%, a little behind only St-Julien as the highest proportion among the Bordeaux appellations. It thrives on gravel, ensuring not only an expression of tannic power but also elegance. ‘The wines are stylish, with notes of cedar and graphite,’ Danjoy says.
On the left bank of the Gironde estuary, between the northern stream Jalle du Breuil and the southern Ruisseau de Juillac, Pauillac measures 22.74km2.
Its elevated ridges of Quaternary gravel reach altitudes of 3m-30m, and the vineyards closest to the Gironde are said to ‘see the river’, which buffers temperature extremes here, whether that’s spring frosts or summer heatwaves.
Château Lafite Rothschild director Eric Kohler says: ‘Pauillac has the advantage of being a compact appellation and fairly homogenous qualitatively, while being well grouped around the town and the Gironde estuary to benefit from the best gravel slopes and the least frost-prone areas.’
Top trio to super fifths
Three of the five top-rated wines in the 1855 Médoc classification are in Pauillac: Château Latour, Château Lafite Rothschild and Château Mouton Rothschild (promoted in 1973, in a rare change to the practically immutable ranking).
Mouton Rothschild is known for its opulence, exuding vivid ripe fruit and cigar-box aromas along with impressive palate density and depth.
Deep gravel soils, ideal for ripening Cabernet Sauvignon, explain why more than 80% of its 83ha vineyard is planted with it. The estate played an historic role in the hiring of Dutch engineers to drain the Médoc marshes in the 17th century, which created most of the Pauillac vineyards that are celebrated today.
Château Lafite Rothschild stresses finesse, with 80%-90% Cabernet Sauvignon in its blends. The well-drained 112ha vineyard includes deep gravels, aeolian sands and limestone subsoil.
‘Pauillac produces fine and balanced wines, with terroirs often quite moderate in their proportion,’ says Kohler. ‘The great terroir of the Lafite plateau is perhaps a perfect example, which leads to balanced and delicate wine, while being dense enough to age well.’
Château Latour blends at least 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, but more clay under gravel results in wines of extra texture, power and freshness. Its most famous plot of vines – l’Enclos – does indeed ‘see the river’. Château Latour was certified entirely organic in 2018.
Pauillac’s two second growths once formed a single property on the southern end of Pauillac.
Next to Château Latour, Château Pichon Comtesse in 2019 completed cellar renovations with an impressive tasting room overlooking the Gironde. It is known for its expression of elegance and finesse. Just across the D2 main road, Château Pichon Baron crafts wines that are better known for their depth and power. Both are known as ‘super seconds’, as quality approaches that of the first growths.
Healthy competition among the 12 fifth growths has led to such improvements that one can now talk of a ‘super fifth’ category.
Châteaux Lynch-Bages and Grand-Puy-Lacoste have long been known to punch above their respective fifth growth rankings.
In her encyclopaedic tome Inside Bordeaux, Jane Anson rates both châteaux as second growths in quality.
In recent years, fifth growth Château Pontet-Canet has blazed a trail towards organic and biodynamic viticulture, officially certified for both since the 2010 vintage. Anson also rates it a second growth.
Pauillac: eight names to know
1 Château Bellegrave
With vines close to Lynch-Bages and the two Pichons and with a higher percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon with more gravels, Bellegrave produces structured and savoury wines for about £16 a bottle. The 2018 from this 8.7ha property is a sumptuous vintage, with ripe black fruit and juicy cassis.
2 & 3 Château Fonbadet, Château Pauillac
Fonbadet – a family-owned 20ha estate with vines on gravel outcrops at 14m-22m near Mouton Rothschild and Lynch-Bages, planted to 60% Cabernet Sauvignon – is crafting fine wines at economical pricing: about £25 in bond. Even more impressive is Château Pauillac, under the same ownership; at 1.5ha, the older vines grown on deep Garonne gravels yield a wine with more density.
4 Château La Fleur Peyrabon
The wines have improved since 2006, when its owner, Bordeaux négociant Millésima, acquired 2ha of its now 7.5ha near the gravelly plateau of Mouton Rothschild. At £25-£30, the 2018 is dominated by at least 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, and exudes full-bodied yet fresh ripeness on a very smooth palate.
5 Château Gaudin
A 4ha property located on the hillsides of St-Lambert village, many vines averaging 40 years in age on the gravelly Bages plateau, dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon. Its Cuvée Collection from even older vines from the best plots is especially worth seeking out.
6 Château Haut de la Bécade
This is owned by Sylvie Raynaud, who presides over Pauillac’s cooperative. Located in the village of Bages, its vines of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon in deep gravel offer fine structure, with the blend in the excellent 2018 including 25% Merlot and 5% each of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The 12-month ageing in French oak barrels is nicely integrated, and the wine exudes rather pure fruit expressions of cherry and cassis.
7 Château Plantey
‘Value for money’, says oenologist Christophe Coupez. Part of the Meffre family of vineyards, Château Plantey has performed well, especially in top vintages like 2010, 2016 and 2018, with a plumper profile as the blend is equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.
8 La Rose Pauillac
The oldest wine cooperative in Aquitaine, since 1933, offers a somewhat lighter expression these days, as its size has been reduced from 100ha to 25ha – many of its vines having been acquired by more celebrated estates. The 2018 vintage blends 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Its fruit-basket aromas are perfect for a summer picnic. Yet president Sylvie Raynaud is making efforts to craft wines with Pauillac character, including a brand called La Rose Pourpre, begun in 2009, a blend sourced from two plots of old vines near the Gironde estuary, representing 0.5ha.
Pauillac at a glance
AP established: 1936
Area surface: 2,274ha
Under vine: 1,213ha (7.5% of all Médoc vineyards)
Altitude: Average 15m above sea level; highest point in Pauillac is 30m
Crus: Three first growths, two second, one fourth, 12 fifth
Properties: 34, including a single co-op that works with 18 properties. Some companies own more than one estate, such as AXA Millésimes, which owns both Château Pichon Baron and Château Pibran
The other fifths have not sat idle, either. Take Château Batailley, for example. Long identified as ‘classic’ Pauillac, a new second wine in 2014 and a third in 2018 reflect more careful selection for the main wine. At Château Clerc Milon, renovations in 2011 under the direction of Danjoy have resulted in wines that surpass even the excellent 2010 vintage, such as the 2016.
After Jacky and Françoise Lorenzetti acquired Château Pédesclaux in 2009, their investments in doubling the vineyard, renovating the cellar and château, and hiring a talented winemaking team have made a wine once known as ‘Château Pedestrian’ into an excellent Pauillac, especially since 2015. Renovations are soon expected at fifth growth Château d’Armailhac, as well as Pauillac’s only fourth growth, Duhart-Milon, under the same ownership as Lafite Rothschild.
How to compare?
Château Pichon Comtesse director Nicolas Glumineau characterises St-Julien wines further to the south – those of Châteaux Léoville Barton, Beychevelle and Branaire-Ducru – as ‘a bit more floral, supple and round’ than those from Pauillac. In some instances, they are also ‘headier’, he says: ‘This can be so with Ducru-Beaucaillou [St-Julien]. Or they can approach a Pauillac style, as in the case of Léoville Las Cases.’
Glumineau also directs Château de Pez in St-Estèphe, where wines are distinguished from Pauillac wines by ‘higher tannin concentrations,associated with slightly more acidic pH, which can make these tannins a little more prominent’. For Château de Pez, he explains, a higher percentage of Merlot is needed for balance.
Ready for climate change
In terms of the changing climate conditions, Cabernet Sauvignon is sitting pretty. Christophe Coupez, director of the Oenology Centre in Pauillac, believes that ‘climate change works in favour of Cabernet Sauvignon, as it ripens better and more evenly’. In fact, its tannic power, freshness and aromatic complexity have ‘never been better’, he says.
Pauillac wines age in varying proportions of new French oak to tame the power of Cabernet Sauvignon, but as it has been ripening more completely in recent warmer years, many estates are soft-pedalling oak extractions to permit more pure-fruit expressions. Château Pontet-Canet even uses some 100 concrete dolia (amphorae) to mature one third of its wine.
Longevity
My tasting notes cover the celebrated 2010 vintage.
For Pauillac, these are children. I recall enjoying the impressive 1945, 1929 and 1900 vintages over dinner at Château Batailley to mark the introduction of its second wine, Lions de Batailley, in 2014.
A key goal for Glumineau is to craft wines accessible in their 10th year, but also complex at age 50. Indeed, the 2010s can be enjoyed today.
More ruby than garnet in tone, many require carafing, with the structure and substance to last another half century. Highly concentrated grapes were picked in 2010. The long growing season permitted grapes to reach phenolic ripeness, so that even cooler terroirs yielded lovely wines.
Higher-than-average alcohol levels are balanced by high acidities, as cooler nights up to the harvest ensured freshness.
The dozen top Pauillac wines from 2010 to seek out
See also
