Château Belgrave: Vineyards
Château Belgrave is located in Saint-Laurent not far from Château Camensac and Château La Tour Carnet. All three properties sit cheek-by-jowl in a little pocket of the Haut-Médoc appellation just to the west of the commune of St Julien. The appellation boundary mirrors exactly that of the commune, and it bears no relation to change in the terroir, unless you believe that the drainage ditch that cuts through the land here should be so regarded. As a consequence these three châteaux have much in common with their St Julien neighbours, the closest of which is Château Lagrange, than you might otherwise imagine.
As you head out of St Julien the first estate you pass is Château Belgrave, Château Camensac being slightly further on, and Château La Tour Carnet further again, right on the edge of the gravel croupe. Despite this proximity to the neighbouring appellation the soils of Château Belgrave are not as prestigious as we would hope; the ground takes a dip here, around the drainage ditch, and the soils show a dark, silty-sandy character. But the land then rises again (as pictured on previous page), the soil soon changing to a paler sand, and then it becomes more gravelly and thus more promising. The land climbs to two gently rolling hills which reach peaks of 23 and 26 metres above sea level, a heady ascent for the otherwise very flat Médoc. Beneath these gravel mounds there lies a clay subsoil.
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