Château Prieuré-Lichine
The Château Prieuré-Lichine is a well-known winery near Bordeaux . Since the classification of 1855 , the winery has been classified as Quatrième Grand Cru Classé (fourth level of classification). The estate is located in the Margaux wine-growing region and was the home of the well-known wine merchant and author Alexis Lichine , who acquired the estate in 1951, greatly enlarged it and managed it until his death in 1989. The estate is quite large at around 77.5 hectares . 50% of the area is planted with Cabernet Sauvignon , 45% with Merlot , 5% with Petit Verdot . The forest density is from 8500 to 10000 vines / hectare. In the middle years the estate produces around 300,000 bottles of wine . After hand-picking and selecting the grapes on sorting tables, the berries undergo a must fermentation for 3–4 weeks in temperature-controlled concrete tanks. Twice a day, the cap is submerged by pumping the must. After fermentation, the wine ages in barriques for 16 to 18 months. 50% of the oak barrels are renewed annually. Among the newer vintages of Prieuré-Lichine, the wine from 2010 (with 92-94 PP ), the wines from 2009 and 2005 (with 92 PP ) and the wines from 2000, 1990, 1989 and 1986 (all each with 88 PP ) stand out. as very good wines. With 87 PP , the estate also produced one of the best wines of the rather weak year 1992. Since 1973, the estate has been producing the second wine, Château de Clairefont , also called "Confidences de Prieuré-Lichine". The estate has been producing a white wine called Blanc de Château Prieuré-Lichine since 1990 .
history
The earlier history of the estate is closely related to the Benedictine - Abbey of Vertheuil connected. In the 16th century the monks planted a 4 hectare vineyard to cover their own needs. Remains of stone sarcophagi from the 14th century were found during renovation work in the late 1970s. These finds show that there was a Vertheuil monastery on the present site. Over the centuries, the monks discovered wine as a source of income and marketed it under the name Le Prieuré de Cantenac . On the occasion of the French Revolution , the properties were secularized and sold. The buyer is a Mr. Durand Delains, who only a little later passed the property on to the Pagès family. At the time of the Bordeaux classification in 1855, a person named Rouland was in charge of the fortunes of the estate. The estate later went to a number of owners such as Madame Rosset, Messrs. Rulh and Rousseau, and Victor Saint-Ubéry. In 1925 his son-in-law Fréderic Bossuet directed the fortunes of the estate. The rapid succession of the owners and the deep Bordeaux crisis since the phylloxera disaster with the subsequent fungal diseases and the two world wars had led to the decline of the winery. When Lichine took over the winery in 1951, the estate was in a lamentable condition. Only 4 hectares of vineyards were still under yield and the vines were in poor condition.
He quickly expanded the area by purchasing a plot of land from Château d'Issan . In addition to rented space, he later also bought parcels from Château Palmer , Brane-Cantenac , Durfort-Vivens and Giscours .
After the death of Alexis Lichine (1989), his son Sacha took over the château. The château has been owned by the Ballande family since 1999.
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 .
