Château Malartic-Lagravière

The château

For centuries the estate was the Domaine de la Gravière. The Maurès de Malartic family took it at the end of the 18th century, and the name became Malartic-Lagravière, for Hippolyte, Comte de Malartic, admiral of the kings of France. The new name reached print with Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, in their English edition of 1883, under J. Ricard, who held Domaine de Chevalier as well. By 1898 it made 45 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) of red off 35 hectares of vines, most of them on a slope well exposed to the southwest, and the guide set its wines, for their finesse and their pronounced bouquet, among the best reds of Léognan. Malartic-Lagravière was classified in 1953, for red and for white, and the list took its present form with the decree of February 16, 1959.

Michèle and Alfred-Alexandre Bonnie bought the 73 hectares at the end of 1996 and rebuilt the cellars to work by gravity, keeping the old order of the vinification inside new equipment; Jean-Jacques and Véronique Bonnie own the estate now. Sixty-six hectares are in red and seven in white, on Günz gravel of the Quaternary, dry and clayey, over a subsoil of shelly limestone veined with clay. The red is 55% Merlot, 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc and ages 20 months; the white, 79% Sauvignon Blanc and 21% Sémillon, ages 12 to 14 months, with 40 to 65% new oak across the 2. The estate makes about 200,000 bottles of red and 30,000 of white a year, and Le Comte de Malartic is the second wine. The farming is agroecological: the soils are plowed rather than sprayed, animals graze the rows and the plantings are chosen for biodiversity.

The 2000, poured from a magnum and decanted, which I tasted in May 2024, was the showstopper of the evening: a complete wine, with its primary fruit and its tertiary notes side by side, and at its prime.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

Cru Classé de Graves for red and white, 1953 and 1959

Owners

Jean-Jacques and Véronique Bonnie; the Bonnie family since the end of 1996

Vineyard

73 hectares; 66 red and 7 white

Soil

Günz gravel of the Quaternary, dry and clayey, over shelly limestone veined with clay Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Grapes

Red: Merlot 55%, Cabernet Sauvignon 42%, Petit Verdot 2%, Cabernet Franc 1%; white: Sauvignon Blanc 79%, Sémillon 21%

Farming

Agroecological; plowed soils, grazing animals, plantings for biodiversity

Cellar

Gravity; red 20 months, white 12 to 14 months; 40 to 65% new oak

Production

About 200,000 bottles of red and 30,000 of white a year

Wines

Château Malartic-Lagravière (red and white); Le Comte de Malartic

In history

45 tonneaux of red off 35 hectares of vines in 1898