Château Desmirail

Desmirail was classified a 3rd Grand Cru Classé as part of the 1855 classification. The wine is the result of a parcel of exceptional terroir within the Margaux appellation, which it represents perfectly with its delicate balance.

The name DESMIRAIL has been associated with wine production in the Médoc region since the end of the seventeenth century. Jean Desmirail, a lawyer in Bordeaux's parliament, gave his name to the property when he received it as part of his wife’s, Demoiselle Rausan du Ribail dowry.

The château belonged to the Desmirail family until just before the 1855 classification, when it was purchased by Monsieur Sipière, the estate manager at Château Margaux. It was under his ownership that Desmirail was classified as a Troisième Grand Cru Classé (third growth).

At the beginning of the twentieth century the property was briefly owned by Robert de Mendelssohn, the nephew of the famous composer, before being acquired by Martial Michel, a glove maker from the north of France. Michel went on to sell the château shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War to Château Palmer.

The Château Palmer company owned the property for several years before selling it to Lucien Lurton, an iconic figure in the Bordeaux wine world, in 1980.

In 1992, Lucien Lurton passed on his properties to each of his ten children. Denis, one of the older children and a lawyer by profession, took over the management of Château Desmirail. Today Denis is taking his father's work even further, modernizing the wine making facilities and putting all of his energy into the development of this Grand Cru Classé.

Internationally renowned for its Grand Cru production, the Margaux appellation, on the left bank in Bordeaux offers wines that are characterized by finesse and elegance.

The outstanding quality of Margaux’s wines can be explained by both the unique microclimate created by its position between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gironde estuary, and the exceptional terroir. Approximately 2.5 million years ago, at the beginning of the quaternary era, various rivers carried gravel to the region and it is this gravel that is key to the successfull cultivation of exceptional vines. The gravel stones store the sun’s heat, and then radiate it back into the soil, helping to guard against frosts and encourage sugars to be produced by the vine ; it also regulates the vines' water supply.

At the property, these pebbles create an ideal terroir for growing Cabernet Sauvignon, which accounts for 70% of the vines, with the rest of the plantings being made up of Merlot (29%) and Petit Verdot (1%).

These grape varieties are grown using sustainable and environmentally friendly techniques on an area of about forty hectares with minimum use of pesticides. The soil is worked in various traditional ways (ploughing into mounds around the base of the vines in the winter, returning of the soil into space between the vines in the spring, etc.) and treatments are adapted to the weather conditions.

Vinification is carried out using modern techniques and equipment, but with an overarching respect for tradition. This results in a wine that can be enjoyed in its youth, but which also has a tremendous capacity to improve with age.  Strict grape selection and carefully adapted maturation methods are both key to making Château Desmirail into the Grand Vin it is.

Desmirail's remarkable winery buildings date from the end of the nineteenth century, and reflect various architectural styles. There are three vat rooms, corresponding to different periods in the property's history.

- At the end of the nineteenth century, an invention arrived that revolutionized vat rooms: the Médoc Vat Room, which operates by gravity. A remarkable example was built at Desmirail; typical of the period, it consists of an exceptional roof structure in the shape of the inverted hull of a ship, and then underneath there are cast iron pillars (emblematic of the industrial era). This room has held four oak casks since 1999.

- In 1997, Denis Lurton invested in a modern stainless steel vat room, with vats of various capacities to enable vinification on a plot-by-plot basis.

- During the 2010 harvest, a smaller vat room was inaugurated, consisting of oak vats, reserved mainly for the vinification of the older plots.

The property is also equipped with three cellar rooms, displaying a combination of traditional architecture and modern features, they are used to store barrels of the First and Second wine.

In the modernisation of these facilities, Denis Lurton and Technical Director Pierre Lafeuillade have been able to optimize and customize the existing buildings while at the same time preserving their original character.

THE BIRTH OF THE WINE

Harvests
Each wine is the result of a year's work in the vineyard. The grapes are hand-picked by a team of sixty people.
After being transported to the vat room, the bunches are de-stemmed and the grapes are sorted and crushed, before being vinified on a plot-by-plot basis. This vinification of each parcel enables an expression of the diversity of the terroir and of the individual grape varieties.

Vinifications
Two types of vat are used for vinification: oak and stainless steel. The wooden ones are preferred for the older plots. Traditional vinification techniques are employed, with steady, gentle extraction, adapted to each grape variety.

Blending
The pivotal stage in the creation of each vintage is the blending wich is carried out in November.
The owner, assisted by the technical director and the consultant oenologist, Jacques Boissenot, select which vats will be used to make Desmirail (the First wine) and Initial de Desmirail (the Second wine).
The decision is based on a consensus between the team at the property and the oenologist, who brings his experience and an external eye.

Maturing
The wines are matured in barrels for about a year. For the Grand Vin, the percentage of new barrels varies depending on the vintage but is never less than 30 %. Approximately every three months, the wines are racked in order to clarify them. Finally, after a year, the wines are blended in the wooden vats and given a final clarification with egg white.

Bottling
This takes place at the château about twenty months after the harvest.