Château Figeac 2025

The 2025 vintage in Saint-Émilion

Vintage benchmark: 94/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A dry summer and cool nights gave balanced merlots, pure and without excess ripeness.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Saint-Émilion. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

The nose, delicate and complex, combines peony, white pepper and red fruit notes supported by a subtle graphite minerality. On the palate, the silky attack rests on powdery tannins of great finesse, while the generous, enveloping mid-palate reveals a bouquet of fresh fruit. The saline finish extends this harmony, offering a perfect balance between freshness and a refined expression of the terroir.

The vintage

The 2025 vintage is defined by exceptionally warm and dry conditions. The outstanding terroir of Château-Figeac, with its distinctive blue clay subsoils beneath gravel rises, played a crucial role in moderating water stress, and viticultural practices designed to preserve freshness throughout the growing season reinforced these advantages. Budbreak occurred early, from March 20 for Merlot; spring brought a single but significant rainfall episode in April (100 mm), providing a valuable water reserve. Flowering unfolded under ideal conditions, and véraison, slowed by heat and drought, benefited from well-timed July rainfall.

In August, temperatures climbed to extremes of 44°C, slowing vine metabolism and encouraging optimal phenolic ripening. The berries remained small and highly concentrated, 20 to 30% below average weight; diurnal temperature variations reached up to 20°C. Harvesting, early and perfectly healthy, took place from September 1st to September 19th, one of the fastest harvests in the estate's recent history.

An extended pre-fermentation cold maceration gently extracted vibrant aromatics, deep colour and silky tannins. Slow, carefully controlled fermentations produced wines of harmony and balance, with Cabernet varieties achieving optimal ripeness. Moderate acidity, combined with well-managed alcohol levels, brings freshness and structural elegance.

Blend of the 2025 vintage

Figures from the 2025 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 25 hl/haYield

Winemaking

From the mid-1940s, Figeac adopted the Swiss technique of triggering malolactic fermentation immediately after alcoholic fermentation.

Ageing

100% new barrels, 15 to 18 months.

Terroir

Figeac is the largest estate in Saint-Emilion, covering 54 hectares. Alongside its 40 hectares of vines, the variety of its landscape contributes to what is now called a natural balance, or "biodiversity". Figeac has large open spaces that add to the majesty of the place and allow wildlife and flora to thrive. Figeac has received a true gift from nature: an enviable Bordeaux climate, an exceptional relief made up of 3 fine gravel mounds, and a soil reputed to hold the largest gravels of the area. This magnificent terroir is the basis for the estate's ranking among the Premiers Grands Crus of Saint-Emilion.