Château Canon-la-Gaffelière: Vineyards
As indicated in my introduction, the domaine is located at the foot of the slope running up to St Emilion. This places the domaine on the very edge of the pieds de côtes as they are known, and in this situation the quality of the wine often depends on the location of the vineyards. The more the vineyards run up the slope behind you, on the clay and limestone, the better quality the fruit should be. The vines planted further down the slope will be on more sandy soils and perhaps of lesser interest.
Surprisingly, looking at a map of the Château Canon-la-Gaffelière vineyard, the majority of the vines lie in a single block which runs from the château down to the D670, the road that runs east-west on the sandy plain between the Dordogne to the south, and the limestone plateau of St Emilion to the north. There are even a couple of parcels on the other side of the road, where the soils are definitely very sandy. This places Château Canon-la-Gaffelière alongside, for example, Château Simard, the lower of the two Simard vineyards owned by the Vauthier family which are separated by the railway line. The upper section, Château Haut-Simard, is of better quality, while Château Simard is the lesser of the two (the Simard estate was divided based on terroir and quality, rather as Canon-la-Gaffelière was at the time of the 1908 Cocks et Féret). It is next to this latter domaine that the vines of the modern-day Château Canon-la-Gaffelière sit. There are two parcels that sit further up the limestone and clay slope though, on the same level as Château La Gaffelière and Château Fonplégade.
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