Château Petit-Village, a small Pomerol domaine

In an appellation where Merlot is king, the Petite-Village estate has shown it has the vineyards and right technical skill to produce excellent Pomerol wines.

The village of Pomerol is famous for its great wines, first among them Pétrus, which leads one to assume that it is one of the pillars of the history of French winemaking. In reality, the fame of its wines, which have Pétrus as their flagship, came only between the First and Second World Wars, when the Moueix brothers moved there and first bought a négoce and then Pétrus.

While many Bordeaux appellations had an official classification since 1855, this appellation had only a few pages in the Crocks & Ferret wine guide.

Petit-Village is a 10-hectare château estate situated between Pomerol and Saint Emilion with such world-famous neighbors as Pétrus, l'Eglise, La Conseillante and Bellegrave. The domaine’s triangular shape allows it to have a variety of soils, from chalky in the north to a lovely and a very fine clay-chalk (the tip of the triangle) one bordering with Pétrus and La Conseillante. The soil component is important because the Cabernet Sauvignon and Franc both need chalk, while clays is key for king Merlot. The main wine of the domaine is a blend of 75% Merlot and the rest equal percentages of the two Cabernets.

The climate is equally as important as the soil and one should not forget that the prestige and quality of Bordeaux wines are due to research and marketing but above all to the omnipresent and fastidious wind that regulates temperatures during both the hot and cold periods of the year.

The vineyards are cultivated using a methods that pay special attention to sexual confusion to control pests, a significant presence of worms and ladybugs and the use of horses to till the soil and keep it aeriated. When we visited Petite-Village a team was busy lashing the vines despite a tremendous rain storm.

The winery is owned by Axa Millesimes that also owns di Château Pichon-Baron, Quinta do Noval in Portugal and domaine de l’Arlot in Nuit Saint Georges.

Although it may appear to be very modern, Petit-Village perhaps has one of the most classic approaches to winemaking in Pomerol with short maceration, fermentation in cement (constantly temperature-controlled vats), clarification using egg-whites and maturing the wine in 225-liter barriques made strictly from French  wood (in fact the brands are Taransaud, Ana Selection and so on). The estate produces two wines: Petit-Village and Jardin de Petit-Village.

P.S.: After the visit I was surprised to find that, despite the downpour, the Pétrus vineyards were all dry and the weather mild. Microclimate or coincidence?

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