2013-CHÂTEAU-PEDESCLAUX-5ème-Cru-Classé-Pauillac

CHÂTEAU PEDESCLAUX

2018 5ème Cru Classé Pauillac

Grapes Cab Franc, Merlot, Cab Sauv, Petit Verdot
Colour Red
Origin France, Bordeaux
Sub-district Haut Médoc
Village Pauillac
Classification 5ème Cru Classé
ABV 13.5%

56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot, 3% Cabernet Franc. Showing quite closed when we tasted at the estate but there was good purity to the fruit and quite a soft, suave feel on the palate. It's a wine with nothing out of place so we're sure it will develop into a very fine Pauillac but it didn't quite light up the room on the day. We just found it a bit correct - more German engineering than French artistic flair - but we're being very picky! Drinking range: 2025 - 2040 L&S (Apr 2019)


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Aromas of blackcurrants, lavender, gravel, dried leaves, spice box and bitter chocolate. It’s full-bodied with firm, well integrated tannins. Creamy and succulent with a solid core of ripe fruit and a long, caressing finish. Grows on the palate. Try from 2025. Rating: 95 James Suckling, www.jamessuckling.com (Feb 2021)

This estate has made leaps and bounds in terms of quality over the past decade, and my money is on the 2018 Château Pédesclaux being the best to date. The 2018 is made from 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot, which will spend 16 months in 60% new French oak prior to bottling. Showing notable freshness and elegance as well as medium to full body, seamless tannins, and perfumed notes of blue fruits, spice, violets, and wet stone-like minerality, it offers the purity, precision, and elegance that the estate now delivers as well as the sweet, sunny fruit of the vintage. It will be accessible with just short-term cellaring yet keep for 25+ years or more. Rating: 93-95 Jeb Dunnuck, www.jebdunnuck.com (May 2019)

Pédesclaux was purchased in late 2009 by real estate mogul, Jacky Lorenzetti. In addition to the purchase of Pédesclaux and its 26 hectares of vineyards, Lorenzetti was also able to acquire an additional 12 hectares of vineyards planted at 10,000 vines per hectare that sit atop the Milon plateau (their rows are interspersed with those of Mouton and Lafite). The total vineyard acreage in 2018 was 49.7 hectares with an average vine age of 35 years. The soils are typically gravelly atop a clay subsoil. It will spend an estimated 16 months on the lees in barrels, 60% new and 40% second year. The blend is 64% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot, and it has 13.96% alcohol. Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2018 Pedesclaux comes charging out of the gate with rambunctious baked plums, warm cassis and Morello cherries scents plus hints of spice cake, menthol and fragrant earth. Medium to full-bodied, the palate delivers mouth-coating black fruits and spicy accents, with a soft, fine-grained frame, finishing long. Rating: 92-94 Lisa Perrotti-Brown, RobertParker.com (Apr 2019)

Château Pédesclaux

Fascinating visit here with the winemaker Catarina Freitas in 2012. Catarina showed us the map of the parcels which were owned by the property at the time that it was bought in 2009, and then two others, showing how, by purchases and swaps, they has vastly reduced the number of parcels and are consolidating the vineyard.

This was also where we first saw Alessandro Masnaghetti's maps of the area, which is a fascinating insight into where all these wines actually come from.

Catarina explained that as a result of the strength of the co-operative movement in Saint Estèphe and northern Pauillac, properties passed down though families often got split into tiny plots. The previous owner, in a rush to expand the surface area, bought what he could. Sometimes this was just a couple of rows of vines in the middle of someone else's vineyard. This made vineyard management harder, and also made it difficult to see clearly what they had at vinification - it was impossible to vinify every tiny bit separately.

Winemaking includes pre-fermentary cold maceration that can last up to an astonishing fifty days. Like properties such as Charmail, they tried using dry ice to cool the harvest so as to make sure the fermentation did not start, but from 2011 on they are using a new method, which I have not come across anywhere before, which is to hold the harvested grapes in a cold room at 3C for twenty-four hours before beginning the egrappage and final sortings and putting them into vats.

We were also shown the proposed new winery, which will use the natural slope of the built part of the property down to the Gironde. It will be built into the hill and use gravity thoughout to avoid pumping. Make no mistake, there intent is very serious here and its a name to look out for.

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