Domaine de Chevalier: Vineyards
As I have already indicated in my introduction, Domaine de Chevalier is one of the more southerly properties in the Pessac-Léognan appellation, along with Château de Fieuzal and Château Latour-Martillac. To the north-east lies Léognan, and to the north-west Cestas, while to the north is woodland and beyond that the city of Bordeaux. To the south and west there is managed forest and also intensive farmland, and although satellite maps don’t show quite the expanse of forest I seem to recall from my jungle adventure, there are certainly no more vines to be found. Perhaps that is because the location of the vineyard is one that predisposes it to frost; hence the frost protector that can be seen among the vines (pictured), photographed during my woodland adventure along the southern edge of the estate.
The estate amounts to at least 80 hectares, although only a fraction of this is planted with vines. When acquired by Olivier Bernard in 1983 there were just 14 hectares planted, although after the land purchases and program of planting described on the previous page it has since expanded to 45 hectares. Of this, 5 hectares are planted to white varieties, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, the remaining 40 hectares are the traditional red varieties. The expansion, accompanied by replanting as required, mean that the vineyard is not extraordinarily old, the vines being about 25 years of age on average, although it does mean a very good density of planting, up to 10,000 vines per hectare, has been achieved. The work in the vineyard tends towards the sustainable but is not officially organic or biodynamic.
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