Château Lynch-Bages

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Château Lynch-Bages is a winery in the Pauillac appellation near Bordeaux in France . Château Lynch-Bages is also the name of the red wine produced there . The château was included as one of eighteen estates as Cinquième Cru Classé (fifth plant) in the official Bordeaux classification of 1855 (see also the article Bordeaux wine (classification) ).

The estate is located in the west of Pauillac and belongs to Jean-Michel Cazes . The patron is a well-known man in the wine scene. He also works as a hotelier on the neighboring small winery.

history

Born in Galway in 1669 , John Lynch came to France after the Battle of the Boyne as part of the Wild Geese's escape . The escape of the Wild Geese refers to the emigration of an Irish Jacobean army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on October 3, 1691. John Lynch settled in Bordeaux as a dealer in textiles, wool and leather and married Guillemette Constant. In 1710, John Lynch was naturalized as French and called himself Jean Lynch.

His son Thomas-Michel married Elisabeth Drouillard in 1740. When Elisabeth's father, Pierre Drouillard, died in 1749, his daughter inherited half of the Bourdieu de BATGES estate and paid Pierre's widow 42,000 livres to become sole property . This year represents the creation of the Château Lynch. He later acquired more lands to expand Château Lynch. Also château dauzac was the property of the Lynch family. On the occasion of the wedding of his fun-loving and politically interested son Jean-Baptiste in 1779, Thomas-Michel passed the property on. Since he did not know how to manage the winery efficiently, Jean-Baptiste soon passed the management of the winery to his brother Michel. Michel Lynch remained responsible for the Château Lynch estate until 1824. After the death of Jean-Baptiste Lynch in 1835, the Lynch winery was split up. While part of it went to the Vasquez family under the name of Château Lynch-Moussas , the Swiss wine merchant Sebastien Jurine, who had recently moved to Bordeaux, took over the remaining part of Château Lynch.

Label from 1929, when the estate belonged to General Félix de Vial

Château Lynch-Bages remained in the hands of the Jurine family and later the Cayrou family for over a hundred years. The wine industry in the Bordelais plagued by the abstinence movement , but also as a late aftermath of the First World War, considerable sales concerns and that even with the Grand Cru locations. France held large parts of the German state territory on the left bank of the Rhine, with its large vineyards, and levied export duties to the former Reich territory. The state and its institutions were overwhelmed with the task of promoting the wine industry and the wine industry itself had neither the strength nor the resources to break out of the slump in sales. In 1934 Jean-Charles Cazes leased the estate from its previous owner, Félix de Vial - the son-in-law of Maurice Cayrou, and then bought it in 1938. Cazes had built a reputation as an excellent winemaker in Bordeaux and he established the wine for the next 35 years Wines from Château Lynch-Bages as powerful plants. He was actively supported by his son André. After Jean-Charles Cazes' death at the age of 95 in 1972, the winery was managed by his grandson Jean-Michel Cazes.

In the late 1980s, the AXA insurance company began building a portfolio of top wineries and turned to Jean-Michel Cazes for help: Claude Bébéar, AXA's president, was a long-time friend of the Cazes family. They founded the group "Châteaux & Associés", which Cazes headed until he was 65 and which ran many highly renowned wineries across Europe at the end of the 20th century. The ownership of Château Lynch-Bages remained with the Cazes.

Lynch-Bages 1996

Vineyard

The 90 hectares of Château Lynch-Bages are just outside the town of Pauillac . The vineyard occupies a gravel ridge over the Gironde . The well-drained soil consists mainly of deep gravel beds over a limestone foundation and is mostly planted with red grape vines. In addition to 73% Cabernet Sauvignon , this is also 15% Merlot , 10% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot . There is also a small plot of land (approximately 4.5 hectares) planted with white grape varieties (40% Sémillon , 45% Sauvignon Blanc and 15% Muscadelle ).

The wine

Château Lynch-Bages is mainly known for its opulent red wine, of which around 25,000 cases of 12 bottles are produced in an average year. The malolactic fermentation takes place preferably in large stainless steel tanks, and the wine then remains in barriques , which are 50-60% new for about 15 months , before the wine is then bottled. Most wine connoisseurs will agree that Chateau Lynch-Bages makes at the level of Deuxième Crus, although it only has a classification as Cinquième Cru. The finest vintages of the last fifty years are recognized as 1961, 1982, 1989, 1990, 1996 and 2000. In 2004, some of these vintages achieved auction prices of over 200 euros per bottle.

In addition, a small amount of white wine is produced under the name “Blanc de Lynch-Bages” .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patrick Clarke de Dromantin: Les réfugiés jacobites dans la France du XVIIIe siècle . ISBN 978-2-86781-362-7