Since Patrick Bernard, managing director of Millésima (Bordeaux company, European leader of the mail-order selling of great wines), bought the château Peyrabon in 1998, quality has become the priority.
In 1989, Xavier Michelet, engineer specialized in viticulture, joined the Babeau family, at that time owner of the castle. “I don’t come from a viticultural
environment, it is rather by choice and passion that I turned towards wine”, he says. He is quickly convinced “that wines with strong personality can be made thanks to the much diversified soils.”
From 1998, the château takes a new step, with an integrated agriculture, essentially manual harvest, systematic sorting, and a plot-by-plot winemaking.
Patrick Bernard's investment allowed a significant reorganization of the domain: a whole program of drainage, replanting, improvement of the equipment was set up. But to reap the benefits took a long time, “around ten years, because it was necessary to go through a major phase of regeneration of the vineyard”, Xavier Michelet explains. Emphasis has been placed on the rebalancing of the planted grape varieties with the renewal of more than 15 ha of vines replanted with 9.000 stocks per hectare. “Today, the vineyard of Peyrabon consists in 60% of Cabernet Sauvignon. This variety quite represents the style of our wines made to be laid down.” It is complemented by 35% of Merlot, 3% of Cabernet Franc and 2% of Petit Verdot.
Material and human resources are brought in order to produce grapes with high oenological potential: ploughing of the soils, short or long cane pruning depending on the grape variety, systematic suckering, excess leaf or side shoots removal, handpicking.
The cellars have also been the object of considerable renovations. The vathouse capacity is more than doubled, both in volume and in number of units. “We dispose of 49 vats for 42 plots, and half of them have a unit volume between 50 and 100 hl max.” Thermoregulation appears, allowing a much finer control of the extractions.
A semi-buried ageing storehouse of 1.200sqm is created and the whole range of barrels is renewed and re-selected.
A main idea led the project: “Because of the diversity of our soils, to isolate each lot of grape was necessary to be able to proceed to the choice of the most suitable mode of winemaking”. So, each plot is individually conducted, from the vatting until the blending, with a method of vinification and a fermenting time which are individually adapted.
“A course of action which, although binding, so lets all power to our consulting engineer, Jacques Boissenot —and now his son Eric— to select complementary plots for the blending of each of our wines”.
Géraldine Gomaere
Château Peyrabon
33250 Saint-Sauveur - France
Tél.: +33 (0)5 56 59 57 10
Fax: +33 (0)5 56 59 59 45
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