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Wine Description
The Story
Palmer and its Alter Ego are two nuanced expressions of the Château Palmer terroir, two interpretations of the variations offered by the climatic conditions of the vintage. These variations can be likened, in music, to symphonic pieces and their jazz adaptations, in the visual arts, to a classic painting and a contemporary rendering of the same subject, and, in literature, to an epic narrative in alexandrine verse and a prose poem.
Alter E...
Wine Information
Characteristics of the vintage
The 2011 vintage will remain in our memories as the most precocious of the 2000s.
The vegetative year began with an exceptionally warm and dry spring. The first consequence was the vine’s early budding. The first flowers appeared in Château Palmer’s vineyards as early as May 10th, almost three weeks ahead of schedule.
The absence of precipitation accentuated water stress on our vines, and we noticed a fe...
Vintage 2011
The 2011 vintage is not easy to handle.
Smith Haut Lafitte not only makes great white and red wine from Bordeaux in Pessac Léognan, they are also at the cutting edge of technology. They were one of the first Bordeaux wine producers to begin using optical sorting, which came in handy with the difficult 2011 Bordeaux harvest. Fabien Teitgen, long-time general manager, joined us for a long detailed conversation about what happened at Smith Hau...
