Château Potensac

The château

The family holds that Potensac has been theirs since time immemorial and has always passed down through the women. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list a Domaine de Potensac under the Liquard family from 1893, at 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) in 1898, and by 1922 a Château Potensac, a cru bourgeois (a Médoc classification), under Georges Liquard. Its owner today, Jean-Hubert Delon, of Château Léoville Las Cases, holds it from his paternal grandmother, Georgette Liquard.

The site is a high point of the northern Médoc, close to the river, and people have lived on it for a long time. The vineyard lies west of the village of Ordonnac, along a double valley, on rises of clay and gravel, gravel in the majority, over a limestone subsoil. It is planted 48% Merlot, 33% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot, at 7,700 vines a hectare and 38 years old on average: a Merlot-led wine in Cabernet country. Potensac was the only Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel of the Médoc appellation, and Jean-Hubert Delon added a 2nd wine, Chapelle de Potensac, with the 2002 vintage.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Commune

Ordonnac

Classification

No classification

Owner

Jean-Hubert Delon, Domaines Delon, from his grandmother Georgette Liquard

Vineyard

7,700 vines a hectare; 38 years old on average

Soil

Rises of clay and gravel, mostly gravel, over limestone Terroir of Médoc →

Grapes

Merlot 48%, Cabernet Sauvignon 33%, Cabernet Franc 18%, Petit Verdot 1%

Wines

Château Potensac; Chapelle de Potensac, since 2002

The house

Also Château Léoville Las Cases, 2nd growth, Saint-Julien

In history

Domaine de Potensac under the Liquard family from 1893