Château Beauséjour: Vineyards
The domaine is to be found directly west of the town of St Emilion, on the road out towards Château Angélus. It is overlooked somewhat by the adjacent Église St Martin, with its rather imposing graveyard (indeed, some of the cellars of Château Beauséjour are tunnelled through the limestone that likes beneath the graveyard). Château Canon also sits just above the estate. The associated Château Beau-Séjour Bécot lies a few hundred metres to the north, set back from the road a little. The lie of the land makes this latter estate difficult to spot, but this is certainly not the case for Château Beauséjour, which sits directly on the side of the road.
The 6.8 hectares of vines are largely located on the slopes around the château, whereas those on the plateau above tend to belong to Château Beau-Séjour Bécot. Most are on the same side of the road as the château, although there are a couple of parcels in the Mazerat sector on the opposite side of the road. They largely have a south- and southwest-facing aspect which is beneficial, in that the ground is naturally well-drained and the vines are nicely shielded from winds coming from the north. At the top of the slope the soils rest on the very desirable Calcaire à Astéries, lower down the Molasses du Fronsadais, with colluvial slip at the foot of the slope. The superficial soils are a mix of both alluvial and wind-blown sands, degraded limestone and clay. This detailed understanding of the vineyard and terroir comes from a land survey carried out after Nicolas Thienpont’s appointment in 2009.
Although during the 1980s the varieties were 50% Merlot and 25% each of the two Cabernets, this is set to change following the aforementioned survey. Some Merlot has been pulled up and the land replanted with Cabernet Franc, and the Cabernet Sauvignon – which reportedly never gave satisfactory results – has similarly been replaced. As a consequence the plantings of Cabernet Franc, which had shrunk to perhaps 20% of the vineyard, now account for more like 30%. The Cabernet Sauvignon has all gone, and so what remains – the other 70% – is all Merlot. The propagation of Cabernet Franc has been achieved using sélection massale, and I think we can expect to see plantings creep up a little more in the immediate future.
