Château Picque Caillou

The château

Picque Caillou lies at Mérignac, at the gates of the city, and its name tells you what the soil is: stony gravel. The house dates from 1755. Charles Cocks listed Pique-Caillou at Mérignac in 1850, under Vanderlinden, at 22 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). R. Latrille bought the estate in 1894, and Édouard Féret’s Les vins des Graves of 1908 places it between Château Haut-Brion and Château Pape-Clément; in 1922 Bordeaux et ses vins, the guide of Cocks and Féret and the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, gives about 35 tonneaux under Maurice Hargous, 25 of red and 10 of white.

Laurent Marti owns it today, after Paulin and Isabelle Calvet, and Peggy Plouhinec is managing director. The 25 hectares of Günz gravel are 22 of red and 3 of white, farmed under Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. The red ages 12 months in barrel, 20% of it new, and the white 7 months. Besides the red and white Château Picque Caillou, the estate sells La Réserve de Picque Caillou, a red, and Château Chênevert, a white Pessac-Léognan. The estate belongs to the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Mérignac

Classification

No classification

Owner

Laurent Marti; Paulin and Isabelle Calvet before him

Direction

Peggy Plouhinec, managing director

Vineyard

25 hectares, 22 red and 3 white

Soil

Günz gravel Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Cellar

Red, 12 months in barrel, 20% new; white, 7 months

Wines

Château Picque Caillou, red and white; La Réserve de Picque Caillou; Château Chênevert, white

In history

Pique-Caillou at Mérignac from 1850; bought by R. Latrille in 1894; about 35 tonneaux in 1922