Just a glimpse from the belvedere with a view over the whole vineyard and one understands Château Haut-Marbuzet has its own history … Owned by the Duboscqs since 1952, it is the adventure of a family of enthusiasts and forunners that built up one of the most beautiful references of Saint-Estèphe.
Owned since 1825 by Irish-born Mac Carthys, the Marbuzet domain has been sold in 1848 in 11 plots. Hundred years later, Hervé Duboscq, an impoverished self-taught man with a talent for winegrowing, bought the 7 ha of the plot of land of Haut-Marbuzet in life annuity. The history of the château and the Duboscq family then started … Hervé and his son Henri needed 45 years to remodel the whole domain of origin with its 66 ha of vines.
Haut-Marbuzet's exceptional terroir extends close to Château Montrose and Château Cos d’Estournel. Gunzian gravels, clay and limestone soil, facing east over the “river Gironde”, provide the vineyard with the perfect balance between warmth and humidity.For the harvest, 100 persons, nearly always the same, pick, sort the grapes in the rows before a second sorting as soon as they arrive at the cellar, under the careful eye of Henri and his sons Hugues and Bruno. 25 concrete tanks built in 1961 enable a vinification by plot and by grape variety. The fermentation is totally natural with no industrial yeasts added, as we use to do at Duboscq's since 60 years.
Aged 71 and with a wealth of 53 vintages produced, Henri who, when he is asked about his training says: “But I am Hervé Duboscq's son”, keeps on blending his wines day and night if necessary in a tasting room neighbouring the cellar and designed therefore.
But this goldsmith work is not finished yet as the choice of the barrels for the élevage (15 to 18 months) is decisive and give the estate's wines their specificities: 100% new French oak from different forests according to the vintage and chosen by Henri to soften the manly tannins of the Saint-Estèphes.
Henri, the “artist-painter” of the château, Hugues and Bruno to who he continues to transmit his knowledge and culture of Haut-Marbuzet, make the wines they like, whatever the critics! A “feminine, round and unctuous wine” that the connoisseurs can appreciate as such in the 5 or 6 first years and that will get the characteristics of the Saint-Estèphe after 10 years. Which leads Bruno to state: “The best lovers of Haut-Marbuzet: those who know to appreciate it at these 2 moments.”
They have many fans with 25,000 customers out of which 10,000 loyal ones: private customers, cellars, restaurant owners but also the Elysée palace, Hôtel Matignon or European Parliament. Hervé is the one who started to develop this distribution network in the middle of the 50s, becoming a forerunner in direct sales and wine tourism.
And the history continues as they bought in 2006 a property of 14 hectares in the Northern Médoc, Château Layauga become Layauga–Duboscq, a new adventure...
Valérie Massot Germe
Visit and tasting all year long by appoitment.
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