Château Pétrus
Château Pétrus is a winery in the French wine-growing region of Pomerol near Bordeaux . It produces the red wine Pétrus , one of the most respected and expensive wines in the world. It is a status symbol that is also sought after as an investment property. In terms of wine quality, however, the Pétrus is on par with other, less famous and expensive top wines from Pomerol such as Château Lafleur or Château L'Evangile and is even surpassed by them in some vintages.
Winery and products
A stone figure of the Apostle Peter is the namesake of the small winery. The light blue window frames, which only show the Château Pétrus in this area, are striking. At the beginning of 2000 the main building was completely renovated.
The estate has a vineyard area of only 11.5 hectares , 95% of which is planted with Merlot and 5% with Cabernet Franc . The use of the grapes is decided after the harvest, in many vintages no Cabernet Franc flows, so the Pétrus is a varietal Merlot and not a cuvée . In the 1950s, the Cabernet Franc made up 30%. The vines are over 40 years old, the yield fluctuates between 15 and 45 hl per hectare. The wine is stored in exclusively new barriques for 19 months , it is not filtered and there is no second wine .
In years when the critics give the wines top marks, bottle prices can be over several thousand euros, even in poorer years a bottle rarely costs less than a few hundred euros. Only the wines of Burgundy -Weingutes Domaine Romanée-Conti are sometimes even more expensive. There are lesser-known neighboring estates in the region such as La Conseillante and Lafleur , whose wines are often offered at a third of the price of Pétrus.
The winery is owned by Jean-Pierre Moueix , who owns other wineries in addition to Pétrus.
The annual production is only 25,000 to 30,000 bottles, which is why the wine is rare on the market due to the low production volume. Often retailers link the purchase of a bottle of Pétrus to other purchases, for example Mövenpick offered Pétrus wines as a subscription in Germany in 2002 ; a single bottle of Pétrus was only sold to the customer when other wines worth at least 4,000 euros were purchased.
Location and soil
The vineyards are located in the so-called buttonhole by Pétrus. The Pomerol plateau consists primarily of gravel , with a clay subsoil . Where Pétrus is today, was the highest elevation that was eroded away. As a result, the gravel-sand layer is only a meter thick here. This geological buttonhole covers 20 hectares, of which 11 hectares are in Pétrus. This is the reason for the special position of Pétrus among the Pomerol wines. The iron-rich clay layer gives the Pétrus its lush, round body, which always dominates over the tannins and is responsible for the truffle-like aromas with age .
history
The winery has existed since the end of the 18th century when the Arnaud family planted the vineyards. Château Pétrus was by no means always the leading estate of the Pomerol. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that Pétrus was considered number 3 in Pomerol behind Vieux Certan and Trotanoy. The great era began in 1925 when Madame Edmond Loubat started buying up parts of Pétrus until she became the sole owner in 1945. It was the 1945 “wine of the century” that finally established Pétrus among the eight great Bordeaux red wines. After Loubat's death in 1961, the heirs gradually sold to Moueix, who combined the best 4.5 hectares of the neighboring Château Gazin with Pétrus, thus reaching the current vineyard area.
Harvest and production
A selective, manual grape harvest is carried out in the Pétrus winery . A parcel is not harvested all at once, but several times, so that only ripe grapes are picked. This cost-intensive method is now also used by other manufacturers who produce top quality wines. It is also used in the production of noble sweet wines such as Auslese , Beeren- and Trockenbeerenauslese in Germany and Austria as well as in Ausbruch , Sauternes and Tokajer .
In addition to such methods, Château Pétrus also uses unusual methods; if it rains before the harvest begins, a low-flying helicopter is used to dry the vines.
The quality requirement means that in bad years not all grapes are used for their own products, but are sold to other winemakers.
Numerous counterfeits of the Pétrus wine are in circulation, especially in popular Pétrus vintages such as 1990, 1989, 1982, 1970, 1961 and 1974. Since the late 1990s, the manufacturer has engraved every bottle to prove its authenticity.
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 (= Collection Rolf Heyne ). Heyne, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-453-16305-2 .
- Robert M. Parker: Parker Bordeaux. Hallwag Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7742-6580-1 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d e f Robert M. Parker: Parker Bordeaux. Hallwag Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7742-6580-1 , pp. 703-710.
- ^ A b André Dominé : Wine . Verlag Könemann, Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-8290-2765-6 , pp. 266f.
- ↑ a b c d Horst Dippel : The great Bordeaux wines . 2nd Edition. Econ, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-430-12099-3 , pp. 474 ff .
- ↑ Clive Coates : The wines of Bordeaux. Vintages and tasting notes 1952–2003 . 1st edition. University of California Press, 2004, ISBN 0-297-84317-6 , pp. 362 .