Château Haut-Bages-Libéral
The Chateau Haut-Bages-Libéral is a known vineyard of Bordeaux . Since the classification of 1855 the winery has been classified as Cinquième Grand Cru Classé (fifth level of classification).
The unusually long name contains two pieces of information. On the one hand, Libéral is the name of the founding family of the estate. On the other hand, the part of the name Haut-Bages refers to the highest point of a plateau called Bages. The Bages plateau is located between the municipalities of Pauillac and Saint-Julien-Beychevelle .
The estate is currently run by Claire Villars-Lurton. She also runs the Château Ferrière and Château La Gurge wineries and is the wife of Gonzague Lurton, who heads the Château Durfort-Vivens estate .
Location, soil and grape varieties
The estate is located in Pauillac and is medium-sized with around 28 hectares. 70% of the area is planted with Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% with Merlot . In recent years, the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon has decreased in favor of a higher percentage of Merlot. The Petit Verdot grape is no longer grown. The varieties 101-14, 3309, 41B and Riparia Gloire serve as the rootstock . In the middle years the estate produces around 180,000 bottles of red wine .
The château is located in the south of the Pauillac appellation , in the immediate vicinity of the commune of Saint-Julien. The vineyards lie on several meters thick gravel deposits brought in by the Garonne river . The gravel soil is particularly suitable for growing Cabernet Sauvignon.
The three-part vineyards are surrounded by those of the estates Château Lynch-Bages , Château Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de Lalande and Château Latour .
The wine
Winemaking
The mean age of the vines is 30 years. The grapes are picked by hand, destemmed and re-sorted several times in the cellar. The fermentation takes place in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks. During the mash fermentation, the cap is dipped in and loosened several times. The maceration time is 3–4 weeks.
expansion
The wine is transferred quickly and without filtering to barrique barrels , where it remains for 16 months (in rare cases up to 18 months). The barriques are renewed 40 percent annually. It is refined with egg white and the bottle is bottled without filtering. A total of around 108,000 bottles of the Grand Vin Château Haut-Bages-Libéral and 78,000 bottles of the second wine La Chapelle de Bages are produced annually .
The oenologist Alain Sutre carries out a controlled malolactic fermentation in wooden barrels for 25% of the wine . This makes the wines a little smoother and rounder.
history
The Libéral family, active in the wine trade, bought land on the plateau called Bages in the 18th century and planted vineyards. Over the decades the estate had great commercial success. The quality efforts of the family were honored in 1855 at the world exhibition with the classification as Cinquième Grand Cru.
When various fungal diseases such as powdery mildew or phylloxera attacked the Bordelais vineyards from 1852 onwards, viticulture in the region fell into a deep crisis, from which Haut-Bages-Libéral was not spared. Much of the vineyard area was abandoned; the manor buildings deteriorated.
In 1960 the estate was taken over by the Société Civile Charreules. The main shareholders of the company were the family of the trading dynasty Cruse. Shortly thereafter, the owners allocated vineyards from Haut-Bages-Libéral to the more profitable Château Pontet-Canet . When this practice became known, Cruse first had to part with Pontet-Canet in 1975 and also with Haut-Bages-Libéral in 1982.
The bidder duel finally won Jacques Merlaut. He bought for a group of shareholders around Bernard Taillan. Merlaut's daughter Bernadette Villars studied oenology with Émile Peynaud . When Bernadette and her husband died in 1992, their daughter Claire Villars-Lurton took over management.
Merlaut also incorporated the goods Château Chasse-Spleen , Château Gruaud-Larose , Château Ferrière, Château Citran, Château Camensac (since 2005) and Château La Gurgue into his Taillan group .
literature
- Charles Cocks, Edouard Féret, Bruno Boidron: Bordeaux et ses vins . 18th edition. Èdition Féret et Fils, Bordeaux 2007, ISBN 978-2-35156-013-6 .
- Horst Dippel : The wine lexicon . 3. Edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596-13826-4 .
- Robert Parker : Parker's Wine Guide . Heyne, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-453-16305-2 ( Collection Rolf Heyne ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ J. Suckling: 50 Best Bordeaux under $ 50.Wine Spectator Magazine, p. 77, March 31, 2007.
- ↑ Website of the winery.