Château La Pointe

With its splendid two hectares of gardens and the magnificent age-old trees, Château La Pointe has always been a charming residence. The château really sprang into life under the Second Empire. Unfortunately, many details of La Pointe’s history are unknown. What we do know is that, thanks to the Directoire style country house, it was one of the first two estates in Pomerol entitled to call themselves a “Château” in 1868.

The vineyard already stretched over 22 hectares, and it remains one of the largest estates in the appellation to this day. La Pointe was awarded many medals from 1882 onwards: notably silver medals both at the Bordeaux Exhibition and at the Universal Exhibition of Amsterdam in 1883.

Château La Pointe’s vines, an average of 35 years old, grow on excellent rootstocks and have always been very well tended and replaced regularly. The density of plantation is 6,300 and 7,600 plants per hectare. The predominant grape variety is Merlot (85%), followed by Cabernet Franc (15%). In the winter of 2007/2008 we uprooted the Cabernet Sauvignon since this variety did not really seem well-suited to Château La Pointe’s soil.

Up until now, yields have been fairly high due to excess groundwater. However, the new improved drainage system will soon reduce yields to 35 hectolitres per hectare, more conducive to the quality we are aiming for. Our goal is not to bring yields down to 20 hectolitres per hectare just on principle, but rather to find the right balance for the vine plant.

The grapes are hand-picked into small crates and sorted twice before vinification. The fermentations take place in temperature controlled vats in ideal conditions for the making of top quality wines. According to the grape variety, the soil type and the vintage, extraction may be by pumping over or by pigeage (punching down the cap of skins). Vatting generally lasts between
3 and 5 weeks.

Half of the vintage undergoes the malolactic fermentation in barrel. All the wines are then barrel-aged for 12 months, with just the right amount of new oak (around 50% depending on the vintage). The terroir of Château La Pointe naturally produces wines whose elegance seduces connoisseurs the world over.

Many wine lovers are under the mistaken impression that Pomerol stops at the upper plateau, forgetting that the appellation is, in fact, much more complicated than it appears... While it is true that the more famous châteaux are located on the highest part of the plateau, a series of gravelly terraces slopes down towards the West. Estates located on these gravelly resurgences produce some of the finest and most characteristic wines of the appellation.