Château Cantemerle: Vineyards
As already noted, the Château Cantemerle vineyard lies south of Margaux, in the southern parts of the Haut-Médoc appellation, and near neighbours include Château La Lagune to the south, Château Cambon-la-Pelouse to the west, and Château Belle-Vue to the north. To the east there is little of interest, just a few parcels of vines before the palus, and the Gironde beyond that.
Having contracted to just 25 hectares during the 1980s the vineyard of Château Cantemerle today covers 98 hectares, on an estate which covers 200 hectares all told, the land not planted to vines being woodland, parkland, meadows and of course it is also home to the château and cellars. The parkland and woodland is significant, having been established centuries ago, sufficiently so for the recent appointment of a Quality and Environment Manager, whose responsibilities include collecting seeds from the various species of trees on the estate in order to establish a nursery of saplings which can then be planted out, perhaps among or around the vines.
Looking underfoot, the soils are typical of the left bank, a rather sandy gravel, the material having come here from the Pyrenees, carried along by the flow of the river during the Quaternary period, before being deposited along the banks here. One of the largest individual parcels of vines is that which sits just to the north of the château, which is tooted into a low gravel mound derived from Terrace 4.
The grape varieties planted are 71% Cabernet Sauvignon (up from 60% in recent times) and 18% Merlot (down from 30%), reflecting the recent shift across the region away from Merlot, especially on left-bank gravel terroirs which are much better suited to the Cabernets. These two varieties account for the bulk of the vineyard, with 4% Cabernet Franc (down from 6%, although if you look back several decades the figure was an unusually high 20%) and 7% Petit Verdot (up from 4%). Despite some replanting the vines average a handsome 40 years of age, and are planted at a density of up to 10,000 pieds per hectare, on 3309, 110.14 and Riparia Gloire rootstocks.
