“2005 WAS A LEGENDARY VINTAGE FOR BEAUREGARD, CERTAINLY ONE OF THE BEST OF THE LAST 25 YEARS.”
🏅Wine Advocate 88 points
🏅Wine Spectator 92 points
HISTORY
HERITAGE
Beauregard’s history dates back to the 11th century and the Order of the Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, from which Beauregard’s emblematic Knights Templar cross originates. The knights were active in the Pomerol region, owned a small manor, and already farmed these lands. It was on this site, five centuries later, that the Beauregard family built the first house, which was replaced during the Napoleonic era by the present chateau -a magnificent Gironde chartreuse, created by a pupil of Victor Louis, the architect of Bordeaux’s Grand Theatre.
Which opens out onto a terrace with two dovecotes overlooking a moat and beautiful grounds. This residence inspired the Guggenheim family, who subsequently built a copy of it at Port Washington on the Long Island peninsular and named it “Mille-Fleurs”. It was in the middle of the 18th century that Beauregard changed from a mixed farming estate to a vine-growing property. Decade after decade, successive owners contributed to its development and towards its rank as one of the best wines in Pomerol.
Chateau Beauregard has been reborn from time-honoured savoir-faire to become a Pomerol great.
A BLOSSOMING
In 2014, the Moulin and Cathiard families purchased Chateau Beauregard and set about making sweeping changes. They also acquired the historical wine estates of Chateau Pavillon Beauregard in Lalande de Pomerol, Chateau Bastor Lamontagne in Sauternes and Chateau Saint Robert in the Graves. At Beauregard, the classic architecture of the site has remained intact. The two centuries-old chartreuse has been totally refurbished and now includes 5 luxury bedrooms which look out over the grounds and the vineyard. A new vat cellar was created adjacent to the existing barrel cellar, which itself has been completely redesigned. Two new reception areas have been created to welcome customers.
THE PEOPLE
TWO FAMILIES, ONE PASSION
Wine has always been a common passion in the Moulin and Cathiard families, who joined together in 2014 to take over 4 wine estates* in the Bordeaux wine region, one of which was Château Beauregard, whose roots in Pomerol go back to the 12th century.
“At Beauregard, our aim is to restore the deserved prestige of the vineyard and reveal the charm of the estate to both wine professionals and the general public. Drawing on our values of sharing, tradition and transmission, our commitment is long-term, in order to develop and enhance these estates and, in so doing, spread l’art de vivre à la française”.
TWO MEN, ONE AMBITION
Two personalities oversee the transformation and development of the Beauregard estate with the clear aim of making it one of the finest growths in Pomerol. Augustin Belloy, the General Manager of Motier Domaines and a member of the Moulin family, looks after the representation of the Châteaux.
Vincent Priou, who has been in charge of Beauregard for 25 years, is today General Manager of the four wine estates. Supported by a team of 30, he also oversees the vineyards’ conversion to organic growing at the four estates.
THE TERROIR
Château Beauregard, one of the first estates in the region to expand its vineyard in the 18th century, possesses exceptional terroir. Its position on the south-east edge of the famous Pomerol plateau enables the property to grow vines on fascinating, precious land. This mainly gravelly soil, in which clay and sand make up the other soil types, produces elegant, flavoursome, fresh and characterful Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Its vineyard stretches over 17.5 hectares (43 acres) where over 35 plots are grown and tended on an individualised basis according to their specificities.
An intra-plot mapping has been done over the whole of the estate in order to identify as closely as possible the subtle physico-chemical differences in our soils. This unique, precious soil must be protected and respected, and everything is done to favour its biology and its natural functioning. The reasoned use of different seeds enables the creation of biological diversity favouring life in the soil. The maintaining of trees and bushes on the estate attracts an auxiliary fauna which is very useful in the fight against certain vine pests. The whole of the estate is grown organically.
Only inputs that are environmentally-friendly and without risk for our personnel and consumers are used. Their quantity is regulated based on precise observation of the threat of vine disease and the stage in the vine cycle. This approach reinforces the typicity and quality of our wines. For over ten years now, all our vineyards have been planted at a higher density than those usually planted in Pomerol. This increases the competition between vine plants and encourages the vines to explore all of our soils. Competition favours higher quality and complexity in our wines.
Throughout the year, the greatest care is lavished on the vines to get the very best out of them. The soils are ploughed in the traditional fashion and the youngest plots are worked using a horse, according to time-honoured tradition. Numerous manual tasks are done in the vineyard, whereby each vine receives individual care and attention so that it is well exposed to sunlight and given good ventilation. Balanced crop loads are enforced in order to achieve the highest possible quality grapes. These practices aim to bring out in the wine all the qualities of this outstanding terroir.
VINIFICATION
The harvesting and vinification at Château Beauregard are carried out with even greater precision today, thanks in particular to a new high-performing vat cellar. Manual harvesting ensures that optimal phenolic ripening is respected on a plot by plot basis and even within each plot.
Grape sorting has been fine-tuned with the introduction of a completely new harvest reception line which combines two selective sorting lines, a high-frequency de-stemmer and laser optical sorting. The vats are filled using gravity flow.
Small 3 hectolitre mobile bins are brought to the top of the vats via a lift, and the berries are then tipped into tronco-conical vats made of pure concrete with a temperature-control system integrated in the mass. Vat sizes including small capacities have been calculated to enable intra plot vinifications. The alcoholic fermentation is done at controlled temperatures of between 25° and 30°C depending on each vat’s potential and the desired extraction of tannins. For the best quality batches, the malo-lactic fermentation is carried out in new oak barrels. We choose up to 7 different coopers and age our wines in barrel for 15 to 20 months.
