Château Grand-Pontet: Vineyards
Navigate your way through the winding cobbled streets of St Emilion until you come to the slightly incongruous five-armed roundabout which sits at the top of the town. Take a left, keeping the towering wall of the ruined Dominican monastery to your right, along with the vines of Les Grandes Murailles, of course. The road starts to gently descend as you are now heading down off the limestone plateau, but not in an abrupt decline as you have on the south side. The slope here is much more subtle. Take a look across the vines, to the left, and you will see Château Le Chatelet, a property which shares some history with Château Grand-Pontet.
Continue on just 500 metres or so and you now come to Château Grand-Pontet, sitting in a prominent roadside position. Although the road is still descending off the plateau here, in reality we have not travelled very far from the town, and thus the soils are still dominated by clay and limestone. As you continue down the slope the profile does change though, shifting from hard limestone to the Molasses de Fronsadais, and then gradually turning more sandy.
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