Château Clarke

The estate

Clarke is old Médoc. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, listed the cru that year under Clarke, its former owner, with Saint-Guirons as the new one, at 50 to 60 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, ranked Château Clarke among the crus bourgeois of Listrac from 1868, and in 1898 they first printed its white, Clarke-Merle-Blanc, from Sémillon and Sauvignon, at 20 tonneaux. By 1922, under Albert Cantegril, the mayor, the domain covered 255 hectares across Moulis and Listrac, about 43 of them vines and 10 of those white, and the book explained the name: white wine was so rare in the Médoc that this one earned the name Merle Blanc, the white blackbird.

After more than 2 centuries of winegrowing and inheritances, the estate Baron Edmond de Rothschild bought in 1973 was run down. He had the vineyard replanted; 1978 was the first vintage of the new Clarke, and 1996 the last he made. The advisers read like a roll call of Bordeaux oenology: Émile Peynaud on that first vintage, Jacques Boissenot from 1988 to 1996, Michel Rolland from 2008 and Éric Boissenot from 2015. Fabrice Darmaillacq’s first vintage as technical lead was the 2016. Edmond de Rothschild Heritage owns Clarke today, with Château des Laurets in Puisseguin-Saint-Émilion, and sells the wines through its own distribution rather than through the Bordeaux trade.

There are 55 hectares for red and 4 for white, on rises of clay and limestone. The 2020 red is 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon from vines 30 years old, picked by hand, sorted in full and fermented in stainless steel, and the estate has been certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 since 2019. Clarke makes about 150,000 bottles a year. Of Le Merle Blanc de Château Clarke, a Bordeaux of 70% Sauvignon Blanc and 10% each of Sémillon, Muscadelle and Sauvignon Gris, it makes about 15,000.

At a glance

Appellation

Listrac-Médoc; the white, Bordeaux

Commune

Listrac-Médoc

Classification

No classification

Owner

Edmond de Rothschild Heritage; bought by Baron Edmond de Rothschild in 1973

Direction

Fabrice Darmaillacq, technical lead, from the 2016 vintage

Consulting

Émile Peynaud, 1978; Jacques Boissenot, 1988 to 1996; Michel Rolland, from 2008; Éric Boissenot, from 2015

Vineyard

55 hectares of red, 4 of white

Ground

Rises of clay and limestone

Grapes

The 2020: Merlot 70%, Cabernet Sauvignon 30%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2019

Production

About 150,000 bottles of Clarke; about 15,000 of Le Merle Blanc

Wines

Château Clarke; Le Merle Blanc de Château Clarke

The house

Edmond de Rothschild Heritage: also Château des Laurets, Puisseguin-Saint-Émilion

In history

Cru bourgeois of Listrac from 1868; the Merle Blanc white from 1898; 255 hectares, 43 of vines, in 1922

Sources: Edmond de Rothschild Heritage, 40 years of Château Clarke · Edmond de Rothschild Heritage wine club, Château Clarke, in French · Edmond de Rothschild Heritage wine club, Château Clarke 2020, in French · Edmond de Rothschild Heritage wine club, Le Merle Blanc de Château Clarke, in French · Edmond de Rothschild Heritage wine club, Château des Laurets, in French · Edmond de Rothschild, Château Clarke, the story of an entrepreneur’s winning gamble