Chateau Margaux 2010 Premier Grand Cru Classe《ZTF1195D》

It’s difficult to summarise in a few lines, the long and passionate history of the estate, it could be entitled “Once upon a time Château Margaux”.

Known since the XII century, it was called “La Mothe de Margaux” (the Margaux mound) and, at that time, it didn’t have any vines. The old name didn’t happen by chance; in a flat region like the Médoc, the slightest “mound” was easily distinguished and the greatest wines are always produced on sloping land that ensures good drainage.

In 1152, Aquitaine fell to the advance of England until 1453 and so Bordeaux wines benefited from this new market. Bordeaux “claret” was adopted as a table wine by Richard the Lion Heart, King of England in the XII century.

The successive owners of “La Mothe de Margaux” were, of course, important lords but we had to wait for the arrival of the Lestonnac family to set up the estate as we know it today. Pierre de Lestonnac succeeded, in the ten years from 1572 to 1582, in completely restructuring the property as well as the vineyard and anticipated the general evolution of the Médoc that had started to abandon cereal growing in favour of vines.

At the end of the XVII century, Château Margaux occupied 265 hectares, land that wouldn’t be divided again. A third of the estate was dedicated to vines, which is still the case today.

England and Holland drank “claret”, a pale wine that didn’t age well. Château Margaux became the epitome for the art of wine-making and the hierarchy between the different Bordeaux growths was already being drawn up.Château Margaux was born.

Through the generations and through the centuries, the skillfulness of one and the innovations of others, progressively made Château Margaux into a wine of excellence; we only have to remember the progress made by Berlon at the very beginning of the XVIII century.

Berlon was the first to vinify the red grapes and the white grapes separately. At that time, the vine stocks were mixed in the vineyard. He demanded that the grapes should not be harvested at dawn “because the grapes were covered in dew and that, if they were harvested in the morning, their colour was diluted and paled with excess humidity”. The beginnings of modern vinification were appearing.Berlon equally understood the importance of the soil. He already knew the best plots. The influence of the terroir was emerging…

The permanence of these viticulture sites is only equalled by the genius of men, owners, managers, winegrowers and cellar masters who have known how to foresee and emphasise the exceptional nature of the terroirs.

In 1705, the London Gazette advertised the first auction of great Bordeaux growths: 230 barrels of “Margose” ! The 1771 vintage was the first “claret” to appear in a Christie’s catalogue.The English Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, is an example of the predilection of the English elite for these Bordeaux first growths; he bought four casks of Margaux per quarter that he practically never paid for!The renown of the “first growths” crossed the Atlantic and Thomas Jefferson, United States Ambassador to France, depicted the hierarchy that already reigned among the best Bordeaux wines, with Château Margau (sic!) in first place. He placed an order for Margaux 1784 on which he wrote “There couldn’t be a better Bordeaux bottle”.

The beginning of the XVIII century marked the expansion of the Great Bordeaux wines and their still informal classifications. That wouldn’t have been possible without the pre-existence, then the permanence, of the notion of a growth, that is to say, a terroir, its wine, its château. Joseph de Fumel, owner in the middle of the XVIII century, planted the “varieties of choice” on the best plots. He realised that only the gravelly areas that are found in the Médoc and in the greatest crus could produce quality wines. The French revolution put an end to this golden Bordeaux century. Elie du Barry, Count of Hargicourt and lord of Margaux, was taken to the scaffold during the Jacobin terror.

Château Margaux – its vines, its woods, its hawthorn forests, its meadows and its mills – was sold at auction by the revolutionaries as a national possession. Laure de Fumel, the last descendant of the Lestonnac, the Pontac, and the Aulède families, all related to one another and who had all looked after Château Margaux so well for three centuries, proceeded to buy back the estate from citizen “Miqueau” who had left it to dilapidate completely, even letting the orange trees freeze!

The years of the revolution got the better of her courage and her passion for her land and she put it up for auction in 1801.

Bertrand Douat, Marquis de la Colonilla, acquired the estate and judged the manor house not to be worthy of the renown of his vineyard. In its place, he built the property that we so appreciate today.Bertrand Douat was a Basque who returned from Spain with a considerable fortune and title. He had been, amongst other things, a ship owner and an authorised Spanish government agent for the negotiation of an exchange agreement with Russia! He was more than fifty when he returned to France; he lived in Paris rather than Bordeaux. In reality he wasn’t really interested in the Château Margaux vineyard and, for him, it was only a means of consolidating his rise in society.It was in 1810, when La Colonilla was already seventy years old, that the work on the château and the farm buildings that we admire today, started. La Colonilla died in 1816 without having ever lived in his château.La Colonilla, wasn’t the only owner of Château Margaux, both a stranger to Bordeaux and the vineyard, to leave so deep an imprint.

For the building of the château, La Colonilla approached Louis Combes, a fashionable Bordeaux architect. At Margaux, Combes realised his work of art. Often nicknamed the “Versailles of the Médoc” the château is a rare example of the neo-palladian style in France.But Margaux isn’t just a refined, aristocratic, dwelling-house, it’s primarily, and especially, a farm. The genius of Combes was to be able to create a true small city of viticulture arranging, on both sides of the château, the buildings necessary for the production of one of the best wines in the world.

On one side, the tradesmen’s yard, with its houses and workshops, where the trades of plumber and mechanics are notably practiced ; the distance from Bordeaux made this necessary. At the beginning of the XVIII century, it was a good day’s journey.

On the other side, the cellars, the vat room and the cooperage. The large cellar, with its majestic perspectives and its tall white columns, evokes the spectacular image of a wine cathedral.This is a complex that, progressively, visitors from all over the world are discovering when they arrive through the long avenue of one hundred-year-old plane trees that mark the entrance to the estate. It is one of superb and unique coherence.

At the beginning of the XXI century, Bordeaux wines are experiencing unprecedented success. The whole world seems to have their eyes riveted on Bordeaux, where the demand for these great wines never stops growing. This prosperity, as well as the rapid expansion of other regions in the world, has placed Château Margaux in a more competitive climate, and also allowed the underlining of its unique position: that of a First Growth classified in 1855, enjoying a terroir that has been shaped by the passing centuries.

But there is no room for it to rest on its laurels – it would be tedious to enumerate all the investments carried out in the property since 1977. It’s about being at the top of its inheritance, but never ceasing to question in order to improve and perfect that which can still be done, in acknowledgement of the heritage of Château Margaux.

The commercialisation, in 2013, of a third wine in order to improve further the quality of our first and second wines, the numerous trials that have been carried out over the last ten years, by our Research and Development department, in particular the observation of the response of the vines and the wine to biodynamics, and the establishment of an authentication system for our bottles are all examples of recent progress, worthy of the history of Château Margaux whilst ceaselessly progressing so as never to disappoint the enthusiasts of the whole world.