Voluptuous Pomerol!

By Emmanuel Tresmontant

© E. Tresmontant / ViaMichelin

The village of Pomerol, 4 miles from Saint-Emilion, produces some of the most sensuous and costly Bordeaux wines... In the midst of this price madness, you can however still track down a few excellent vine growers who buck this price trend.

A star among Bordeaux wines

The sole name of Pomerol is the stuff of dreams, like the old cobwebbed bottles of this wine that you slowly decanter in the evening while Pauillac lamb is sizzling in the oven... Even more than Chambolle-Musigny and Nuits-St-Georges in Burgundy, Pomerol conjures up the opulence, suppleness, and unique silkiness of a wine with a fine ruby colour and powerful aromas of black truffle. Pomerol wines have not however always been so famed, as recalled by Jancis Robinson: 'Just 50 years ago, Pomerol was not considered a first-ranking wine!'*

Today, the international prestige enjoyed by the smallest of the Bordeaux wine designations (800 hectares for 150 owners) is such that speculation has, naturally, supplanted the love of wine. Therefore the ordinary wine lover must abandon all thought of tasting one day the mythical Château Pétrus, the 2OOO vintage of which is sold for . £2,200 a bottle! As for the wines lower down in the unofficial hierarchy of Pomerols (this designation does not have an official classification of its wines), no bottle can be had for less than £75, whether a Château Trotanoy, Vieux Château Certan or the tiny Château Le Pin.

© E. Tresmontant / ViaMichelin

Château Bourgneuf-Vayron: one of the oldest Pomerol châteaux

While crisscrossing this singular village where even the most humble house boasts the title of château we met Dominique and Xavier Vayron. Located close to the church, their château built in 1821 is one of the designation's oldest. Disregarding society life, this enthusiastic couple never goes on holidays and take pains to make authentic wines reflecting the local area. As Dominique explained to us: 'We're lucky in France to have some of the finest soils on Earth. The geology of the Pomerol soil is extremely complex. It would be a mistake to neglect the unique expression of these soils and make standard vine-variety wines instead. Everyone, today, can grow Merlot or Chardonnay in California or elsewhere... To make Pomerol or Montrachet, on the other hand, you need special soil: that's our treasure!'

© E. Tresmontant / ViaMichelin

Vine growers' vines

The 9 hectares of Château Bourgneuf-Vayron vines grow on the sunniest slope of the Plateau de Pomerol alongside Château Trotanoy vines. Dominique is a hands-on person and takes great care of her vines that have reached the grand age of 40 and even 60. Her vines get a remarkably stable quantity of water from the brown, porous soils and this promotes grape ripening. The vineyard, on gravelly soil, clay and the famous underpinning of iron that is specific to Pomerol, is one of the location's most favoured (the Pétrus vineyard, for its part, is an absolutely unique micro-site). Practising traditional vine growing without pesticides, Dominique and Xavier plough and harrow their vineyard and obtain below average yields: 40 hl per hectare instead of 47. Manual harvesting allows them to pick the finest Merlot** grapes whose thin skin leads to uniquely smooth, dense and round tannins. Château Bourgneuf wines are fermented over a 15 to 20 day period in temperature controlled cement vats. The wine is then aged for two years in oak vats of which a quarter are replaced each year.

Tasting notes

Dominique and Xavier Vayron's wines stand out from standard wines by their generous body and their somewhat rustic tannins. Like all great Pomerols they reach their peak after 5 to 15 years but, 31 later, the 1975 vintage which we were lucky enough to taste on the spot still appears incredibly young! The 1998 (a great year at Pomerol) is a great, dense and concentrated wine with a magnificent nose of black truffle and an extremely silky body. Still somewhat restrained, the 2000 and 2001 are fine, meaty and fruity wines that will reveal their aromas and finesse in a few years time. As for the 2003, it is dense and tannic but, unfortunately, already out of stock at the property. 2005 and 2006 are two textbook vintages that we can't wait to taste! We recommend that you taste these Pomerols with roast meats, such as partridge with meadow mushrooms, honey-basted duck, suckling lamb, poultry from Bresse or even calf sweetbread with mushrooms.

* Atlas Mondial du Vin, Flamarion, p. 106

** Merlot is the leading vine variety at Pomerol! Pétrus for instance is made up of 95% Merlot. It is a fragile variety and, in the Bordeaux region, ripens approximately one week before Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

Where can these wines be found?

In Saint-Emilion at Hostellerie de Plaisance (chef, Philippe Etchebest) and at L'Envers du Décor.

In Nice, at the Hôtel Négresco restaurant.

In Eugénie-les-Bains, at Michel Guérard's.

In Vieux-Ferrette (Alsace) at the cheesemonger's Bernard Antony.

In Paris, at L'Arpège (Alain Passard) and at Caves Lavinia.

In Soyaux (Charentes), at Cave des Rochers.

In San Sebastian (Spain), at Martin Berasategui's.

Practical information

Château Bourgneuf-Vayron

1, Le Bourg Neuf

33 500 Pomerol

Tel: 05 57 51 42 03 - Fax: 05 57 25 01 40

Public retail price: from £18 to £22 a bottle.

Other accessible, fine Pomerols

Château Gombaude-Guillot (organic agriculture).

4, chemin des Grand'Vignes

Tel: 05 57 51 17 40

Château Vieux-Maillet

8, rue Maillet

Tel: 05 57 51 04 67

Château La Fleur du Roy

13, chemin Jean Lande

Tel: 05 57 51 74 57