Chateau Léoville Las Cases announces second wine

Bordeaux second growth Chateau Leoville Las Cases has announced it is to produce a second wine.

Yorick D’Alton of the Delon family, owners of the St Julien property, said this week it was the wish of Leoville Las Cases director Jean-Hubert Delon ‘to make a real second wine.’

He added, ‘The trend at the property is to select more and more, and if we make a second wine this will improve our top wines.’

Currently the property produces two wines, the grand vin from the original walled ‘clos’ vineyard, and Clos de Marquis, from a separate plot to the west of St Julien, with very different terroir.

D’Alton said, ‘This will be a common second wine from both vineyards, made from young vines and vats that are not of the right quality level.’

The first release of the new wine, to be called Petit Leon de Léoville, will be from the 2007 vintage.

No further details on pricing or release date have been announced.

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Written by Caroline Gilby

Caroline Gilby MW is a freelance writer and consultant, specialising in Central and Eastern Europe. Among others, she currently contributes to Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book, The Oxford Companion to Wine, and the World Atlas of Wine, and has previously written for Dorling Kindersley’s Wines of the World, The Wine Opus, and Tom Stevenson’s Wine Report. Prior to her career as a writer, Gilby spent seven years as a senior wine buyer at Augustus Barnet off-licences, where she became the first major buyer to import Hungarian wines to the UK. She initially studied plant biology, in which she holds a doctorate, but abandoned life behind the microscope for a career in wine soon after winning the Decanter-Macallan Malt Whisky Taster of the Year Award while still a student. Gilby passed her MW in 1992 and has been visiting and tasting the wines of Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania for over 20 years.