Château Pédesclaux 2014

The 2014 vintage in Pauillac

Vintage benchmark: 90/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A gloomy summer redeemed by an Indian summer: the cabernets are radiant and the freshness is true to the Médoc.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pauillac. 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

Deep, intense, almost black color. The nose quickly appears of great complexity displaying smoky notes, blackcurrant, chocolate and nutmeg. The wine gains intensity with agitation and reveals notes of morello cherries and blueberries. Very delicious, the attack is ample, fatty and demonstrative. The wine is well constructed, very harmonious, structured by tannins of great finesse. A complex fruit accompanies the palate, which concludes with notes of milk caramel and freshly roasted cocoa. 2014 brilliantly inaugurates our brand new winery and its revolutionary facilities. Thanks to the in-depth work carried out in the vineyard since 2009 and to this formidable tool, 2014 is the new benchmark vintage for Château Pédesclaux.

Blend of the 2014 vintage

Figures from the 2014 sheet

• 38 hl/haYield
• 35 yrsVine age

Winemaking

For the first year, we are using our brand new 100% gravity vat in the interest of total respect for the grapes and the wine! Thus, the harvest collected in small crates is cooled in a cold room for 24 hours then transported by elevator to the sorting tables. After selection, the uncrushed berries are delicately placed in rolling vats, which transport them like caviar into truncated conical vats adapted to the size of each plot. After a long vatting period, the wine is barreled by gravity (60% new barrels and 40% one-wine barrels).

Ageing

12 to 14 months in French oak barrels (60% new barrels & 40% one-wine barrels).

Terroir

Beneath the vines of Pédesclaux lies a geological masterpiece whose origins date back 40 million years. It is this unique terroir, quintessentially Médoc, that the 1855 classification recognises. The château stands on a plateau of gravel overlooking the town of Pauillac; the soil is made up of clay-limestone gravels, in reality a mixture of clay, limestone, fine gravel and pebbles. These plots in fact adjoin renowned properties such as Mouton-Rothschild and Pontet-Canet. Pédesclaux works with three different grape varieties: 47% Cabernet Sauvignon for the structure of the wine, 48% Merlot for roundness, and 2% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot for aromatic complexity.