Château Léoville-Poyferré

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Léoville Poyferré 1985

The Chateau Leoville-Poyferré is one of the famous wineries of Bordeaux . Since the classification of 1855 , the winery has been classified as a Deuxieme Grand Cru Classée , the second highest level of the classifications.

It is located in Saint Julien , in the vicinity of the town of Pauillac on the "Route du Vin", department road no. 2.

The three estates Léoville (las Cases, Barton and Poyferré) belonged together until the 18th century. Poyferré is the middle of the range in terms of size and produces the wine of the three estates , which is (sometimes wrongly) rated as "smaller" .

A breakthrough came with the 1995 and 1996 cohorts (beginning of advice from Michel Rolland ). The wines have since become more beefy and concentrated with a tendency towards the New World. The best wines ever produced there are those from the 2009 vintage , which was awarded 100 "Parker points" by the wine critic Robert Parker . A bottle from the 2009 vintage is rarely available for less than 230 euros (as of 2016; 0.75 liters each).

80 of the 95 hectares of the winery are planted with vines. Approx. 65% are planted with Cabernet Sauvignon grapes, 23% with Merlot, 8% with Petit Verdot and 4% with Cabernet Franc.

history

The vineyards of the chateau are part of the formerly much larger holdings of Léoville: At the beginning of the 17th century, the lands along the Gironde belonged to the Seigneurie de Lamarque . It was thanks to the Dutch to have drained the wetlands along the river. The first usable areas were laid out in 1638 on an area that was drained early on a higher gravel knoll. From the second half of the 17th century, the de Moytié family laid out their first vineyards. The gravel dome was later named Mont Moytié. In 1707, the politician and President of Parliament took possession of Bordeaux and later bequeathed it to his two daughters. One of the women married the influential Blaise Antoine Alexandre de Gasq, Seigneur von Léoville and also a member of the Parliament of Bordeaux. After disputes over the inheritance of the Moytié daughters, de Gasq managed to reunite the separate estates. The areas ranged from Château Beychevelle in the south to Château Latour in Pauillac in the north.

De Gasq died childless in 1769, and the Léoville estate went to an inheritance of four nephews chaired by the Marquis de Las Cases Beauvoir. The property was administered by Jean-Pierre d'Abbadie and Bernard and Jean-Joseph d'Alozier. During the turmoil of the French Revolution , the Marquis had to flee the country. However, he managed to keep his property and not lose it as a common good ( Bien national ). It parted with just under a quarter of the areas that were later shaped by the Irish wine merchant Hugh Barton to form Château Léoville-Barton .

The son of the Marquis, Pierre-Jean de Las Cases, Maréchal de Camps directed the fortunes of the remaining property from 1815. In 1840 the property was further divided by way of succession. While Pierre-Jean de Las Cases kept almost two thirds (today's Château Léoville-las-Cases ), the other third was transferred to his sister Jeanne de Las Cases. Her marriage to Jean-Marie de Poyferré gave rise to the name Château Léoville-Poyferré.

literature