Château de Pez

The château

Château de Pez was created in 1452, and for 2 centuries it belonged to the Pontac family, who also owned Château Haut-Brion. The Revolution sold it as national property, and it passed through several influential Bordeaux families. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists a Pez under de Tarteyron in 1845, at 80 to 90 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). From 1868 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it as La Salle-de-Pez, known in the trade as Château-de-Pez, the property of the wine broker William Lawton; in 1874 they describe 100 hectares with 36 of vines in one piece, a rare extent in the Médoc, on a high plateau of well-exposed slopes, among the bourgeois supérieurs. It took a silver medal at the Paris exhibition of 1878, and in 1922 it stood as Château de Pez under Jean Bernard.

Pez came to Champagne Louis Roederer in 1995 through Jean-Claude Rouzaud, the father of Frédéric Rouzaud, who heads the house today, and it is part of the Roederer Collection. Nicolas Glumineau, who also runs Pichon Comtesse, is general manager, with Blandine Prevot in the vineyard and Jean-Luc Chazeau as cellar master. Since 2005 the work has aimed at precision, each plot farmed, fermented and tasted apart. The estate was a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in the classification of 2003.

The 44 hectares lie in 70 plots on gravel rises over a subsoil of clay and limestone, planted 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, 25 years old on average, farmed with measured spraying and certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. In the new cellar the wine ferments plot by plot in 40 vats of different sizes, thermo-regulated wood and truncated-cone stainless steel, and spends 15 to 18 months in French oak, about 50% new, in a cellar of 600 barrels. Second de Pez, the second wine, began with the 2019 vintage.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Estèphe

Commune

Saint-Estèphe

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2003

Owner

Champagne Louis Roederer, since 1995; Frédéric Rouzaud

Direction

Nicolas Glumineau, general manager; Blandine Prevot, the vineyard; Jean-Luc Chazeau, cellar master

Vineyard

44 hectares in 70 plots; vines 25 years old on average

Soil

Gravel rises over clay and limestone Terroir of Saint-Estèphe →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 54%, Merlot 40%, Cabernet Franc 4%, Petit Verdot 2%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Cellar

40 vats, thermo-regulated wood and truncated-cone stainless steel, plot by plot; 15 to 18 months in French oak, about 50% new

Wines

Château de Pez; Second de Pez, from 2019

The house

Also Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac

In history

La Salle-de-Pez of William Lawton, 36 hectares of vines in one piece, in 1874