Château Palmer 1998

Characteristics of the vintage 1998

Summer was exceptionally fine, with hot and very dry weather in August. The vines were not overladen with fruit, which meant that by mid-September they had reached optimum levels of ripeness in terms of sugar and phenolic compounds.

Althought there was some reduction in sugar levels during the period of persistent rain that followed, the rain had little effect on the polyphenols or the overall quality of the grapes.

Speedy extraction made vinification much easier. The wines obtained from each of the three grape varieties show a balance fruit with excellent tannic structure, while still maintaining the elegant Palmer style.

Harvest dates: from 09/24/1998 to 10/09/1998

Blend

Merlot: 52%
Cabernet Sauvignon: 43%
Petit Verdot: 5%



Château Palmer

In a number of vintages in the history of the wines of Bordeaux, there has often been one wine that from the beginning was standing out as being the undisputed "Wine of the Vintage".
These wines have mostly been one of the Premier Crus. Examples coming to mind are Mouton 1945, Margaux 1900, Lafite 1870 and Haut Brion 1989.
There have however been a few non-premier crus that have held this distinction and one of the most famous examples is the Château Palmer 1961 - a wine that launched Palmer into that small group of "Super-seconds", which is literally incorrect, considering that Palmer was declared only a Troisieme Grand Cru in 1855. Its fame came as a group of wine experts voted it number one, ahead of all Premier Crus at the famous Dr. Taams tasting in Holland in 1978.

Had the 1855 classification been made a few decades later Château Palmer would most likely have been included amongst the deuxieme crus. The explanation to this is found in Palmers history.

The property was once known as Château de Gascq and its reputation was not very prominent until General Palmer came along.

Charles Palmer came from a family whose fortune was made from beer rather than wine.
His father had run the first mail-coach service between London and Bath. He also ran the Bath Theatre Royal and was the member of Parliament for Bath - a position he reputably obtained by offering free theatre tickets to the electoral members and their families.
Charles Palmer was born in 1777 when the family had established itself in the London Society and was educated at Eton and Oxford before joining the 10th Dragoons - the regiment of the Prince-Regent. He became part of the Princes inner circle of friends and was a popular member of Londons high society.
Charles Palmer followed his father as a member of Parliament, most likely as he also took over the theatre and its arrangement with the electoral members.
He advanced rapidly in ranks during the Napoleonic wars and was a general at the time he arrived in Bordeaux after the Battle of Toulouse in 1814.
Palmer took a liking to the city and considered settling down there at least for part of the year. The decision to do so was made as he made the aquaintance of the attractive Madame Marie Brunet de Ferrière in a stage coach travelling to Paris. She told General Palmer that her husband had just died and that she was travelling to Paris to sell their property.
This, she told, was making a wine only second to that of Château Lafite but the times were so hard that she was prepared to sell at only a quarter of its real value. The result of her story combined with her charms was that Charles Palmer had decided to become the new owner by the time they had arrived in Paris. So, on June 16th 1814 the ownership passed into the hands of Palmer for the sum of 100.000 Francs. Since Madame de Ferrière’s description of the quality of its wines proved wastly exaggerated, Palmer spent four times that amount over the next years improving, expanding and replanting his property from 60 to about 160 hectares.
Palmer also employed a Mr. Gray to manage the property as he spent much of his time in London promoting his wine, now named after himshelf. It became very popular in the gentlemens clubs and amongst the London Society, partly because of its soft and elegant style and partly because of Palmers standing in the London social circles.
This was much thanks to his relation to the Prince-Regent. This dependance on the Prince-Regent was however in the end to become Charles Palmers downfall.
The Prince favoured powerful wines strengthened by generous amounts of Rhône wine and he gave Palmer the advice to try to improve his wine more to his taste. Knowing that the Princes acceptance of his wine was important for commercial success in Londons upper circles he returned to Bordeaux to try to "improve" his wines.
History mostly repeats itself and there are parallels between the importance of the Prince Regent in those days to that of a certain wine critic today, with wine makers changing their wine style in order to please, rather than being true to their traditional style of wine.
Palmer now tore out his old vines and replanted his vineyards in the hope of producing wines with greater power. This, combined with Mr. Gray fraudulently secreting away money for himself led to Palmer's fortune shrinking at an alarming rate. His wife left him and he was forced to sell his house in London, his mansion in Bordeaux and parts of his vineyards to pay his debts. Finally, he sold the remains of the property to the wife of one of his creditors in 1843 for 274.000 Francs. It was resold to the Caisse Hypothécaire Paris a year later.

In 1853 it was bought by the brothers Isaac and Emile Pereire for 410.000 Francs. The Pereire family were of Portugese-Jewish origin and had become one of the leading banking families in Paris at the time. They were involved in the building of the new Paris of Baron Haussmann and Napoleon III, the creation of the seaside resort of Arcachon and the building of railroads. They were also rivals of the Rothschilds and bought Palmer the same year as Baron Nathaniel Rothschild bought Mouton. They set about investing money in expanding the size of the property and increasing the quality of its wines that had been suffering during the last years of General Palmers ownership. They also built the present château in 1856. The famous classification of 1855 came too early for both Mouton and Palmer to be classified where they a few decades later should have belonged. Because of their financial business abilities they managed to grow and prosper even through the difficult times of oidium, mildew and phylloxera. These three plagues coming in a short time after another had ruined many bordelais château owners but it was the Napoleonic inheritance laws combined with the depression of the 1930s that spelled the end of the Pereire era. There were now so many family members wanting their say in the running of the property that it was next to impossible to get anything done and too few were interested in investing further money into a venture losing money at a steady rate every year.

So, in 1938 it was decided to sell to a consortium of four wellknown Bordeaux names - Sichel, Mähler-Besse, Miailhe and Ginestet. The Miailhes and Ginestet gradually sold their parts to the Sichels and Mähler-Besses, so Château Palmer now is owned by Societé Sichel, holding about a third share, and the Mähler-Besse family holding the rest.
It was to take until 1953 for Palmer to make a profit.

Château Palmer now has 55 hectares of vineyards planted with just under 50% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, a few percent Petit Verdot making up the rest.
The terroir is similar to that of Château Margaux consisting of a very thich layer of gravel and lying in the part of Margaux with the best drainage. It also benefits from the nearness of the river having a beneficial influence on the climate, cooling it when too hot and warming it when too cold.

The fame of Château Palmer started, as mentioned earlier, with its magnificent 1961. This was however not a "one-day-fly" in any way, it had already produced a lovely 1959 and its 1962, 1966 and 1970 were among the best wines of Bordeaux. The rapid rise of its reputation can also in part be put down to the under-performance by more famous châteaux like Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild and its famous neighbour Château Margaux during the later part of the 1960s and the 1970s. That Château Palmers reputation as one of the very best wines in Bordeaux diminished somewhat during the 1980s and 1990s lie not in any drop in quality of their own wines, but rather in the renewed growth in quality of its peers. It is still a wine producing wines of almost premier cru quality on a regular basis. There have been gradual changes taking place over the years. A second wine called Réserve du Général was introduced in 1983 (its name was changed in 1998 to Alter Ego). This has led to less „Grand Vin“ being produced (60% in 2009) and more Alter Ego (35% in 2009), the rest being sold off as generic wine. The old wooden fermentation vats were exchanged for new stainless steel vats in 1995. An unusual feature of these is that they kept exactly the shape of the wooden vats they replaced.
Palmer has been sold on the open Bordeaux market since 1998, before this it was exclusively traded by the two owner’s trading companies.
In 2004 a new director, Thomas Duroux, took over the reigns of the management of the property after having been involved in wine in such diverse places like Provence, Hungary and Italy where he was winemaker at Tenuta de Ornellaia.