« L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux », la devise de la famille Cuvelier colle parfaitement aux vins du château Léoville Poyferré. L’exigence au service de la perfection.
History
The history of the 3 Léoville en Saint-Julien is singular. It all began in 1740 when Blaise Antoine Alexandre de Gasq, dit le seigneur de Léoville, acquired a plot of 120 hectares of vines, which he then named Léoville. Quite avant-garde, he was the first to train the vines.
Unfortunately, upon his death, the property will be divided into 3, managed jointly by his nephews and nieces. The latter, moreover, is married to a Las Cases, which will become the Léoville Las Cases castle.
During the French Revolution, one of the nephews fled and saw his share confiscated and sold as a national property, a certain Hugh Barton bought the 40 hectares, which would become the Château Léoville Barton.
The second separation occurred in 1840, when brother and sister Las Cases separated the vineyard again. The sister being married to the Baron de Poyferré, the vineyard belonging to him, an area of 60 hectares, will now be called Château Léoville Poyferré.
A singular history that will give birth to three properties that have become icons of this vineyard. Moreover, they are all twond cru classé within the very famous classification of Médoc wines published in 1855.
Since 1920, the castle is owned by the Cuvelier family, rich merchants of northern France, in the company of the castles Moulin Riche (AOC Saint-Julien) and Le Crock (AOC Saint-Estèphe) also.
The vineyard and its terroir
Château Léoville Poyferré owns 80 hectares of vines (20 of which, in one piece, belong to Château Moulin Riche, another property of the Cuvelier family), where the parcels are scattered and intertwined with those of Château Léoville Las Cases.
The grape variety is 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 7% Petit Verdot and 5% Cabernet Franc.
The terroir, meanwhile, is composed of a rich diversity of soils, mainly composed of peyrosols with sandy-clay subsoil. Such heterogeneity makes it possible to produce grapes with different but very complementary profiles during the final assembly. It must be said that the vine is one of the plants that most reflects its terroir.
Clay helps to retain water, sand acts as a filtering agent and therefore forces the vine to work more to find water, black soils are both rich in nutrients but also organic matter, finally the serious, as for them, are essential to the maturity of cabernets sauvignon since they capture heat during the day to restore it at night. Everything comes together to produce exceptional wines.
Working in the cellar or the quest for perfection on a daily basis
Exploiting such a terroir without an ounce of requirement during winemaking and breeding would be aberration.
À la vigne tout d’abord, l’agriculture y est raisonnée et est récompensée, depuis 2017, par le certificat HVE3 (Haute Valeur Environnementale de niveau 3). Environ 80% des produits utilisés sont bio. L’homme travaille en accord avec son vignoble et l’écosystème qui l’entoure, en limitant au maximum les interventions à la vigne.
Once the time has come for the harvest, there is excitement around the property. These are done manually, taking great care in picking the bunches to bring the purest grapes to the winery.
Once harvested, the clusters are sorted one time by hand, then a second time in an optical sorter. The most suitable grapes will therefore be introduced in tanks to carry out a first cold fermentation.
The objective is to extract with sweetness, but in an intense way, the fruit aromas contained in the grapes.
At Château Léoville Poyferré, there are 57 stainless steel vats, which allows a piecemeal work. 2 generations coexist, cylindrical vats, since 1990, reserved for the wines of Château Moulin Riche and the second wine (Pavillon de Léoville Poyferré), as well as truncated conical vats since 2010, they reserved for the great wine of Château Léoville Poyferré. The use of truncated conical tanks is not insignificant and has its importance, indeed, during the reassemblies, the cap will go down and the wine will take new paths. The extraction of color and tannins will therefore be better.
The tanks with a single wall (cylindrical) allow an alcoholic fermentation of about a week, followed by three weeks of post-fermentation maceration.
The double-walled tanks (conical trunks) allow, before the two phases explained above, a cold pre-fermentation maceration for a week at a temperature between 3 and 6°C.
During vinification, the densities are taken each morning, in order to judge the progress of the fermentations before the introduction of the wines in barrels for malolactic fermentations. These are made in new oak barrels, which allows the wine to gain stability but also flexibility.
Once matured, the wines will be put in barrels for a period of about 18 months. For the great wine, the share of new wood is about 70 to 80% depending on the vintages, the rest being barrels of a wine.
The final blend is decided by mutual agreement between Isabelle Davin (oenologist of the castle), Didier Thomann (cellar master) and Michel Rolland (oenologist council of the castle).
A daily requirement that makes Château Léoville Poyferré an essential engine of this wonderful appellation of Saint-Julien, vintage after vintage, it stands out as one of the greatest.
