Château Duhart-Milon: Vineyards
While the Château Duhart-Milon buildings are located on a back street in the town of Pauillac, the vines are naturally distant. The vast majority of the estate’s 76 hectares of vines are located in a broad sweep running in a north-south direction, inland of the vineyards of Lafite-Rothschild and Mouton-Rothschild. The vines extend to the very periphery of the Pauillac appellation; beyond, any vines lying to the west of the Duhart-Milon can at most claim the Haut-Médoc appellation.
This places the vines of Château Duhart-Milon on the extensive gravel mound that dominates this corner of Pauillac, which is derived from Terrace 3. These gravels are mixed with the wind-blown sands of Les Landes, and as is common on the Médoc they lie over a deeply buried limestone bedrock. Being a little further inland, and sitting at an ever-so-slightly higher altitude (we are talking a few metres, no more than that), this is a slightly cooler terroir than that of Château Lafite-Rothschild. It also has less protection from the moderating effects of the Gironde during frost periods. I don’t mean to be melodramatic, but have spent some time running around the vineyards of Pauillac appellation when training for the Trail de Sancerre, the landscape this far west feels a little desolate.
Under the Rothschilds the vineyards of Château Duhart-Milon, which at the time of the acquisition in 1962 had been dominated by dying vines and were overly-rich in Petit Verdot, were largely cleared, new field drains were installed, and new vines were planted. As I have already indicated, the vineyard is now up to 76 hectares, on an estate that covers 111 hectares. Today the vines are predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon, this variety accounting for 67% of the vineyard, with 33% Merlot. Unusually, there is no diversity in the varieties planted here; the Cabernet Franc, which looking back at older Bordeaux texts once accounted for 3% of the vines, seems to have been grubbed up, which is perhaps not a surprise; this variety is much less favoured on the left bank than it is on the right bank. Perhaps more surprising, all that Petit Verdot, the popular choice when looking to add a little ‘seasoning’ on the left bank, has also gone.
