Chateau de Lamarque, Haut Medoc

History

Château de Lamarque is a splendid vineyard of Haut-Médoc. Built for more 1,000 years, the Château was always the property of the same family. The 35 hectares of vineyard is composed of a terroir of gravels. The planted grape varieties is composed of 45% Cabernet-Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, 35% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot. Ranked as Cru Bourgeois Supérieur since 1932, the property produces excellent wines, characterised by finesse and elegance. The archives attest to the fact that the vines existed since the XVth century.  After the troubles of the French Revolution, the estate continued to develop its growing activity. Despite all, the prosperity of the vineyard was disrupted by the vicissitudes of two World Wars. In 1960, the estate was revitalised thanks to Marie Louise d’Evry and her husband Roger Gromand. In 1985, their son, Pierre-Gilles Gromand-Brunet d’Evry, in cooperation with his wife Marie-Hélène, took over the property. Their efforts were rewarded in 1983 when the Château De Lamarque became a member of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux. Inside this prestigious and challenging club, the property is considered to be as famous as a Grands Crus Classés. According to Pierre-Gilles Gromand-d’Evry, “The philosophy of our winemaking process is founded on the respect of the fruit. No one movement by excess, only softness.”

Tasting Notes

A powerful wine with good structure and well integrated tannins.  There is a beautiful balance between cassis notes and subtle oak.  This is a classic Haut Medoc red with a decent length finish.

Average age of the vines 

35 years

Vinification

Traditional Bordeaux, in stainless steel and cement vats, equipped with thermoregulation; each grape variety and parcel is vinified separately (bleeding is carried out on each vat to obtain maximum concentration). The entire production is put into French oak barrels (from the Allier region) for its maturation, including 3 to 4 racking and returns per year and fining. No filtration is carried out during bottling at the château (only a slight sieving) (new barrels 40%; one year 40%; two years 20%)

Viticulture : Soil work and fertilisation : Cousinié method : "Ultra reasoned" method "More nutritional balance of the vines for less treatments". Protection: only curative, never preventative, half-dose possibly repeated.  Work on the vines: pruning, de-budding, pruning, thinning out of the leaves. Manual green harvest, at sunrise in July and at sunset in August. Harvesting at the right maturity: manual for Merlot, Petit-Verdot, Cabernet Franc and mechanical for young Merlot (plants) and Cabernet Sauvignon. 

Optical sorting on arrival of the harvest at the Cuvier. Chateau de Lamarque was equipped in 2012 with an extraordinary grape sorting system using cameras combined with high-end computing. The result is an elimination of all foreign bodies (wood, petioles, leaves and all plant elements), on the one hand, and all berries whose chlorophyll content does not correspond to the precise maturity, desired and decided by Pierre-Gilles Gromand of Evry. Today, this system is only found in the famous grands crus.