Long standing fame
The Haut-Médoc appellation is situated further up-stream of the Gironde.
Long standing fame
The legally created division into Médoc and Haut-Médoc dates from 1935. Since 1815 a well-known Chartrons broker, spoke of great red wines in the Haut-Médoc, so recognizing the efforts of this region’s growers as early as the eighteenth century. The same Bordeaux broker revealed that the traders of the Chartrons and the great Bordeaux proprietors had already established a league-table of the parishes in which the vine-growing villages of today’s Haut-Médoc appellation showed well.
The terroir
The Haut-Médoc appellation stretches some thirty-seven miles from north to south, from Saint-Seurin de Cadourne to Blanquefort. Within this area, certain zones produce wines exclusively with the Haut-Médoc appellation. It has terroirs of remarkable quality, with a pre-dominance of layers of (essentially Garonne) gravel, deposited in outcrops, these sites are all characterized by their wide diversity.
Today in the southernmost communes of the appellation, closest to the suburbs of Bordeaux, numerous vineyards present at the beginning of the twentieth century have now disappeared, victims of urban expansion. But the vines live on thanks to the passion of the winemakers.
Tasting
The astonishing variety of different terroirs over this large area explains the diversity of Haut-Médoc wines, a rarity within one and the same appellation. Despite these differences due to this mosaic of climatic and geological influence, the wines share the same family traits.
Lively and brilliant, full-bodied without being too powerful, and harmoniously balanced, they acquire a rare complexity over the years.
Crus