Château Calon-Ségur: Vineyards
The château and buildings lie to the northwest of the village of St Estèphe, and the vineyards lie in a large block to the south of the château and gardens, to the southeast towards the village, and to the east and northeast out towards the Gironde, which lies a little less than one kilometre away. Surrounding the vineyards is a stone wall, a feature very common in Burgundy but remarkably rare in Bordeaux. Within these walls are the vines of Calon-Ségur which saw it catapulted to its third-growth position in the 1855 classification of the Médoc.
To the south of the village are the other four classified properties in this commune, Château Montrose sitting closest to the Gironde, while Château Cos d’Estournel, neighbouring Château Cos Labory and nearby Château Lafon Rochet all sit on the gravel escarpment that runes west-east along the southernmost limit of the appellation. This makes Château Calon-Ségur the northernmost of all the estates classified in 1855. It is also one of the lowest-lying classed growths, the altitude of the vineyards typically just 10 metres above sea level.
The soils reflect the proximity of the Gironde, the aforementioned topsoil and brown clay mixed with a pale and creamy gravel, and also in some areas sand. These upper layers extend perhaps five metres downwards, and beneath that there is limestone, the classic Calcaire de St Estèphe which runs beneath this and other vineyards of the northern Médoc. It is this predominance of clay – noted in my introduction to Calon-Ségur, presented on the first page of this profile, as I tiptoed through the waterlogged landscape – that provided new owners Suravenir, and their man on the ground Vincent Millet, with their greatest challenges.
