Pages

  • Chateau Labegorce

    #

    The land that the Labegorce estate now sits on entered recorded history when a certain Duke William of Acquitaine made it his own. The Duke had no known achievements in winemaking but is remembered as an early troubadour and for leading an army in the 1101 ‘Crusade of the Faint-Hearted’, which didn’t go at all well. Vines arrived in the 17th century, and in the 18th century the name Labegorce arrived as a corruption of L’Abbe Gorce, ‘Abbot Gorce’, the Abbot in question being an owner for a while. When the Revolution arrived, the Labegorce estate was large and successful.

  • Chateau Lafaurie-Peyraguey

    An Uncorked favourite for quality, value and sheer drinkability, Lafaurie-Peyraguey never makes blockbuster Sauternes but rather elegant and food friendly wines at home with the foie gras as much as the Roquefort or Tarte Tatin. The Chateau itself is a proper castle, not some effete house for courtiers or their modern counterparts grocers and builders to entertain in. At once imposing and bizarre, it was constructed in the 13th century but didn`t establish a reputation for fine wine until the mid nineteenth century./CW

  • Chateau Lafite Rothschild

    #

  • Chateau Lafon-Rochet

    #

    Few Bordeaux chateaux are more associated with a particular colour than St-Estephe fourth growth Lafon-Rochet; both the chateau itself and the label on the bottle are a bright shade of yellow. (It’s worth noting, though, that over in Pomerol Vieux Chateau Certan does own pink). Lafon-Rochet began as an aristocratic home and estate, though (unlike many chateaux) it was not confiscated during the Revolution. The modern world arrived in 1959, when chateau and estate were purchased by the Tesseron family.

  • Chateau Lagrange

    #

  • Chateau Langoa Barton

    #

    No Bordeaux classed growth has been in the hands of the same family longer than Langoa Barton; it was purchased by Thomas Barton in 1821. Of course, Leoville Barton followed into the family stable soon after, and both properties are now on their eighth generation of Bartons, with Damien Barton now working beside his sister Melanie and their mother Lilian. The two properties are inevitably defined against each other. The Leoville Barton vineyards lie in the north of St-Julien, between the chateau and the river.

  • Chateau Lascombes

  • Chateau Latour

    In my tiny mind Chateau Latour always seems the most stolid of the first growths, the most reliable, the one you would want on your side. Yet in recent times their radical decision to abandon the en primeur system went against current thinking and they remain alone in this. Although the estate was founded in the 15th century, the wine entreprise started around 1670.

  • Chateau Leoville Poyferre

    #

    One might expect the three Leoville siblings - Leoville-Poyferre, Leoville-Las Cases and Leoville-Barton - to make broadly similar wines. After all, they are neighbouring estates, all in St Julien, all classified as second growths in 1855, and all once part of the very same estate, Leoville, until debt and Napoleonic-era turbulence sundered them. But with different owners and winemakers at each, they can produce radically different wines.

  • Chateau Leoville-Barton

    #

    The commune of St Julien may have no first-growths, but it is well served by seconds and fourths (Margaux rules the thirds).

Pages