Latour castle

The Château Latour is a wine field of 65 ha located in the Médoc on the commune of Pauillac. It is a “First Great wine” of the Vignoble of Pauillac according to the official Classification of the wines of Bordeaux of 1855. It shares this rare distinction with the Château Margaux, the Château Lafite-Rothschild, the Château Sheep-Rothschild and the Château Haut-Brion.

History of the field

Soil

Today the vineyard counts 65 hectares in production including 47 hectares around the castle, called “the Enclosure”, are reserved for the production of the High-class wine. They occupy a very characteristic situation in Medoc, including the whole of a croup limited to north and the south by two small brooks and the east by the “Palus” of the edge of the Gironde. It is thus of these vineyards which see the “River”, the only able ones to produce high-class wines according to an old proverb médocain.

The grounds are old low registers of origin Gunzienne (beginning of quaternary) which one finds in several production zones of the high-class wines of Bordeaux: initially in the Médocains Great wines, but also in Haut-Brion in the Low registers, Castle White Horse and Figeac with Saint-émilion, Pomerol and Yquem with Sauternes. They are characterized by a great stone abundance (at least 40 to 50%), by their poverty and their permeability, factors of great quality for the wines.

However, the basement of Latour present of the argillaceous zones whose natural drainage is insufficient and this is why it was set up a network of drains in potteries, entirely posed at the XIXe century and who is today the object of vigilant care to maintain it in perfect operating condition.

Encepagement

Encépagement of the field is that which one finds in the great fields of the Medoc, with a strong prevalence of the Cabernet-sauvignon (80%). The Merlot occupies 15% of surface. As for the frank Cabernet and Small verdot, they account for only 5% of the Encépagement. This vineyard has a density of high plantation (10 000 feet per hectare) because it is an additional factor of quality, each foot producing a small number of grapes.

Wine

The production of this castle is from 200.000 to 220.000 bottles per annum.

External bonds

Official site

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