Château La Grave

The château

La Grave takes its name from its soil, almost pure gravel, and the name is old. It stands on the western side of the Pomerol plateau and belonged in the 19th century to the Trigant de Boisset family. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, listed it in 1868 under Mlle Trigant de Boisset, at 40 to 45 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and from 1874 under Dubourg, an avoué in Bordeaux, who won a bronze medal for it at Paris in 1878. From 1886 it stood among the first growths of Pomerol, at 15 tonneaux, and their notice of that year counted it, at about 8 hectares, among the oldest and most esteemed growths of the commune: its wines owed their iron to the ores of the soil and their other qualities to the stony cover, so abundant here that it gave the vineyard its name, and they were much liked in Holland and Germany. In 1898 it had kept almost all its old French vines, and in 1922, under the widow of A. Dubourg, it was a first growth with gold medals from Brussels in 1897, the Concours général agricole in Paris in 1906 and Bordeaux in 1907.

Christian Moueix bought La Grave in 1971, his first vineyard, and renovated the vines, the château and the cellar; it belongs to Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix. The gravel here is the start of a strip that runs on into Saint-Émilion through Château Cheval Blanc and ends at Château Figeac. The 8 hectares, on gravel and fine clay, are planted wholly to Merlot, 20 years old on average, and certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. The grapes are picked by hand and sorted by hand and then optically, fermented with gentle extraction in temperature-controlled concrete and stainless steel vats, and the wine ages 16 to 18 months in French oak barrels, 40% new.

At a glance

Appellation

Pomerol

Commune

Pomerol, the western side of the plateau

Classification

No classification

Owner

Établissements Jean-Pierre Moueix; bought by Christian Moueix in 1971

Vineyard

8 hectares; vines 20 years old on average

Soil

Almost pure gravel, with fine clay Terroir of Pomerol →

Grapes

Merlot 100%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Cellar

Picked by hand; sorted by hand and optically; concrete and stainless steel vats; 16 to 18 months in French oak, 40% new

In history

The Trigant de Boisset family in the 19th century; a first growth of Pomerol at 15 tonneaux from 1886