Château Peyreau

The estate

Peyreau was a sizable property long before it was a Neipperg one. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, listed it from 1893 under Charles Beylot, at 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and their notice of 1898 described a domain of 52 hectares, 1 kilometer northeast of Saint-Émilion, with 25 hectares of well-kept vines, part of them among the first growths, and a gold medal from the Universal Exhibition in Paris of 1889. Féret’s survey of the Libourne country, in 1897, placed it between the first and the second growths. By 1908 it made 100 tonneaux, with another gold medal at Bordeaux in 1907, and in 1922 it belonged to the widow Lacaze-Beylot, still at 100.

Count Joseph-Hubert von Neipperg bought Château Canon La Gaffelière and La Mondotte in 1971, and Clos de l’Oratoire and Peyreau, which borders it, a few months later. His son Stephan von Neipperg took over the management in 1985 and runs the family’s Bordeaux estates today, Château d’Aiguilhe and Clos Marsalette among them.

The 10.07 hectares are clay-limestone Fronsac molasse, with clay and sand at the foot of the slope: late-ripening ground, and Merlot’s ground, 90% of the vineyard against 10% Cabernet Franc, with vines 25 years old on average. The grapes are picked by hand, plot by plot, into small crates, sorted before and after destemming and left uncrushed; they ferment for 15 to 21 days in temperature-controlled concrete vats, the cap punched down by pneumatic pigeage. The malolactic and the aging happen on fine lees in barrels that have held 1 or 2 earlier vintages, for 12 to 18 months depending on the year, and the wine is fined and filtered only when the vintage asks for it. The 2018, picked from September 24 to October 4 at 21 hectoliters a hectare, came out at 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Franc, after 14 months in barrel.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

Saint-Émilion, the northeast slope

Classification

No classification

Owner

Vignobles Comtes von Neipperg, since the early 1970s

Direction

Stephan von Neipperg, since 1985

Vineyard

10.07 hectares; vines 25 years old on average

Ground

Clay-limestone Fronsac molasse; clay and sand at the foot of the slope

Grapes

Merlot 90%, Cabernet Franc 10%

Cellar

Picked by hand; concrete vats; 12 to 18 months on fine lees in barrels of 1 or 2 earlier vintages

The house

Also Château Canon La Gaffelière, La Mondotte and Clos de l’Oratoire, Saint-Émilion; Château d’Aiguilhe; Clos Marsalette

In history

50 tonneaux under Charles Beylot in 1893; a gold medal at Paris in 1889; 100 tonneaux in 1908 and 1922

Sources: Vignobles Comtes von Neipperg, Château Peyreau · Vignobles Comtes von Neipperg, the family and the estates · Les Vins de Saint-Émilion, Château Peyreau