Château Hostens-Picant

Located in the Gironde, the expansive residence of the Hostens-Picant family has a charm that is impossible to resist. It is here – nestled between 42 hectares of rolling fields – that the family has “built” their vineyard over the years. For the ninety years prior to its purchase in 1986, the estate had remained property of the same family. The story of the grounds, however, goes back considerably further, to just seven years after the end of the Hundred Years War. The first occupants are attested from 1460, when the property bore the name Château des Granges. At the start of the XIXth century it was renamed Château de Grangeneuve, an appellation that would remain until ownership of the estate again shifted hands. In 1990, Yves gave the estate the name Château Hostens-Picant in homage to his family's lineage. In five centuries, the estate knew but four families; Yves and Nadine being the fourth.

Nadine and Yves were first struck by the magic of the grounds in 1986, when they happened across the estate located 24 km east of St Emilion. At the time only 19 hectares of the property were used for vineyards; of these, certain swaths were but partially-cultivated. Initially bound by a contract with the UNIVITIS cooperative, for three years Nadine and Yves conducted different vinification tests before finally settling on construction of a vinification and aging cellar. Their first wines were created in 1990.

The two had only to “listen” to understand that there on that parcel of the bordelais countryside – forgotten by critics and wine-lovers alike – the possibility of making truly great wines existed. Nadine and Yves Hostens-Picant have given new life to this place that seemed to have awaited them for years.

The reds are composed essentially of merlots and cabernets francs. Sémillons, sauvignons and muscadelles make up the whites. All the grapes are meticulously vine-selected before delivery to the cellar. No chemicals are ever used and all work on the vines is strictly manual, including close guyot cuts to limit vine yield, turning over the first 20cm of earth to increase oxygen intake, disbudding to aerate vine stocks, pruning, green-harvesting...

After being picked from the vine, red grape varieties are fermented either in stainless steel vats or wooden truncated conical vats, depending on the final destination of the extracted juice. The stainless steel vats are pumped over twice daily and the wooden conical vats are cap-punched eight to ten times throughout the entire fermentation process. This process of maceration lasts anywhere from a fortnight to three weeks. The best juices undergo malolactic fermentation in oak barrels, where they are left to age for roughly 14 months. Blending is not carried out until after aging is complete. For the Lucullus cuvée, grapes are left to age for up to 18 months, a process for which a higher percentage of new casks are used.

Our whites are vinified à la bourguignonne, meaning that after a soft pressing, the grapes are left to age in 400L barrels. Our sémillons, sauvignon blanc and sauvignon gris have all come into their own on limestone and clay soils; the muscadelle has achieved excellence on flint. After a brief skin maceration, the grapes are pressed, placed in vats and finally cold-settled in order to remove coarse lees. The juices are fermented separately in 400L barrels that have already held two or three other vintages. Over the course of the ten to eleven month fermentation process, stirring is conducted to place the fine lees in suspension. At the end, the juices are blended.

Over the years we have never hesitated to evolve and raise difficult questions in the interest of cultivating the absolute best our land has to offer. Since 2004, we have partnered with and received the guidance of Stéphane Derenoncourt and his staff. A relationship based on mutual trust, a host of different resources and the fine quality of the land have all contributed to the design of a truly grand project...

With Stéphane, a cultural revolution has begun on the Hostens-Picant property. We have hit our production stride; no more than four to five bunches of grape per vine stock are harvested on this exceptional terroir, where the surface – a layer of clay, strong and pure – is traversed by rock rising up from the depths below. Land was first cleared and then re-planted with 6,600 vine stock per hectare, our formule d'or for ideal growing conditions.