Château Margaux
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The vineyard of Château Margaux is one of four wines to achieve First Growth status in the 1855 Bordeaux Classification because of its high price. According to Forbes.com, a bottle of Château Margaux 1787 holds the record as the most expensive bottle of wine ever broken, insured at $225,000. Chateau Margaux usually consists of approximately 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 5% Petit verdot and Cabernet Franc grapes. It is one of the most expensive wines in the world costing over $1750 a bottle even whilst still in the barrel before it is released.[1]
The château lies in the commune of Margaux in the Médoc region in the département of Gironde. The vineyard is planted in gravelly terrain on the left bank of the Garonne estuary. It is in the Margaux Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée.
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[edit] History
The estate has been occupied since at least the 12th century, but it was only with the arrival of the Lestonnac family in the 16th century that wine production became of particular importance, and in the 1570s Pierre de Lestonnac cleared many of the grain fields to make way for grapes. By 1700 the estate covered its present area of 265 hectares, and the 78 hectares devoted to vines has remained essentially unchanged since then.
As with most of Médoc's châteaux, the 18th century saw the wine develop from a pale watery drink that faded within only a few years, to the dark, complex liquid that has been stored in cellars ever since. At Château Margaux this transformation was largely due to a manager named Berlon, who revolutionised techniques of wine-making by introducing novel ideas such as forbidding harvesting in the early morning to avoid dew-covered grapes, and acknowledging for the first time the importance of soil quality.
By the 19th century, the estate's wine was well known. Thomas Jefferson placed it number one in his personal classification. The 1855 classification ordered by Napoleon III confirmed its status.
The estate's château itself was completely rebuilt in 1810 when Bertrand Douat, marquis de la Colonilla, commissioned one of Bordeaux' foremost architects, Guy-Louis Combes,[2] to create a building worthy of the wines that were made on the site. The result was Combes' masterpiece, a four-square palace with a columned portico in neo-Palladian style that has been called the "Versailles of the Médoc", familiar from its appearance on the Château Margaux label. It sits in its own park, at the end of a cobbled drive.
In the 1970s, after a series of low-quality vintages, the owners of the estate since 1950 were forced to sell Château Margaux. The successful buyer was French grocery and finance group Félix Potin, headed by Greek André Mentzelopoulos. Mentzelopoulos transformed the vineyard through well-chosen investment in the wine-making process and by his death in 1980 Château Margaux was back among the region's finest wines. At the beginning of the 1990s, an exchange of shares was negotiated with the Agnelli family but the management remained in the hands of Mentzelopoulos' daughter Corinne Mentzelopoulos. In 2003, Corinne Mentzelopoulos bought back the majority stake and became the sole shareholder of Château Margaux.
[edit] Vines
As is predominantly the case in Médoc, the majority of the vines are Cabernet Sauvignon, with its vines covering 75 percent of the vineyards. Next comes Merlot at 20 percent, with Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot making up the rest. Around 30,000 cases are made annually, with production divided between the famous Premier Cru and the additional Pavillon Rouge. A small amount of Sauvignon Blanc is also grown to make the Pavillon Blanc wine, sold under Bordeaux generic AOC. Average vine age at Chateau Margaux is 35 years.
[edit] In popular culture
- In the Japanese film Lost Paradise, the featured couple drink this wine before committing suicide.
- The character Taylor Townsend in the TV series The O.C. claims to have spontaneously married a Frenchman in part as a result of drinking one too many bottles of Margaux.
- In the film Thank you for Smoking, Nick Naylor considers the 1982 vintage to be the best wine ever made.
- In The Mystery Guest: An Account, writer Grégoire Bouillier presents the French artist Sophie Calle a bottle of 1964 Margaux as a birthday present.
- In American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis, Patrick Bateman and his girlfriend Evelyn drink "well aged bottles of Chateau Margaux" while staying in the Hamptons.
[edit] References
- ^ 2005 Margaux Margaux - Buy now at Berry Bros & Rudd's online wine shop
- ^ Guy-Louis Combes (1757-1818) was trained in Paris and spent some student years in Rome before establishing his practice at Bordeaux, where a street commemorates his name.
[edit] External links
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