In 1988, on Baron Philippe’s death, consolidation of the vineyard was well under way and Clerc Milon had regained its reputation among wine-lovers. However, the technical facilities were limited to a rudimentary vat house, the cellars were located some distance away in the town of Pauillac and the “château” was just a small village house. So it was only right that Baroness Philippine, continuing her father’s work, should include modernisation of the estate in her ambitious plans for the development of the family company.
A new Clerc Milon thus arose in two stages, with the construction of an entirely gravity-feed vat room in 2007 and then, in 2011, a set of buildings with a surface area of nearly 3,600 sq. metres, comprising a half-underground barrel hall, a cellar and reception and tasting rooms. The two designers, the scenographer Richard Peduzzi and the architect Bernard Mazières, came up with a rectangular design in the form of a temple, encircled by a vast terrace giving onto the vines. The materials used – stone, glass and wood – echo the world of wine. The necessary energy is provided by 300 sq. metres of photovoltaic cells, while the same concern for the environment prevails in the vat room.
With its high silhouette, proud façade and ipe wood cladding, Château Clerc Milon now forms an integral part of the Médoc landscape.
Château Clerc Milon wines are aged for 16 to 18 months in oak barrels, 40% of them new. Humidity in the barrel hall is maintained at around 80% by ultrasound humidifiers and the temperature is maintained between 14 and 16° C. Racking is practised once, twice or three times during the maturing period: the clear wine is run off into another barrel to separate it from the lees that have collected at the bottom. The empty barrel is then cleaned and refilled. Traditional fining with egg-white is carried out at the end of the maturing process in order to refine the wine’s tannic structure and complete the clarification process before bottling.