Saint-Macaire

The earliest records in my library are short lists. William Franck, in his Traité sur les vins du Médoc (1824), named “le St-Macaire”, with the Cruchinet, among the vines of the few red wines of the Entre-deux-Mers. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, named “Le Saint - Macaire” in 1868 among vines found in the department “in such small quantity that we shall only name them” («en si petite quantité que nous ne ferons que les nommer»). In 1874 they gave it as “Bouton-Blanc ou Saint-Macaire”, a vine that liked cool soil and gave a very colored wine. That edition found it at Cubzac, in the Cubzadais, and, as moustouzère, at Gabarnac and Semens in the Entre-deux-Mers.

The 1898 guide gave it its fullest entry. It liked the lowest parts of the palus and “does well in flooded land” («Réussit bien dans les terres submergées»), yielding abundant wine, very colored, soft, and very ordinary, which brought “its share of fine color” («son contingent de belle couleur») to a blend. Growers were told to plant only the broad-leaved Saint-Macaire and reject the crinkle-leaved one. In 1893 the guide recorded a new palus vineyard of 40 hectares at Saint-Estèphe, half in gros verdot and Saint-Macaire. VIVC lists Saint Macaire (10472), with Bouton Blanc, Moustère, and Moustouzère among its names; the identity is likely, since VIVC also gives Bouton Blanc to the Béquignol Noir and the guide gave it to the Fer of La Brède.

Oldest record in my library: “le St-Macaire”, 1824, in William Franck, Traité sur les vins du Médoc, 1st edition (Entre-deux-Mers); “Le Saint-Macaire”, 1868, in Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins, 2nd edition