Château Grand-Puy-Ducasse: Vineyards
Unlike many vineyards of the great estates of Pauillac, the vineyards of Château Grand-Puy-Ducasse are not that easy to identify. The reasons are simple, and twofold. First, there is no grand château as a focal point among the vineyards of Pauillac, because – as I have already explained in the first page of this profile – Pierre Ducasse chose to build his château in Pauillac, close to the Gironde. Secondly, there are no (or at least I don’t recall seeing any) vineyard signs or markers as erected by many other estates. They may be there, but I have not spotted them as I have whizzed up and down the D2 and the D206 in my hire car.
Nevertheless there are now 40 hectares of vineyards, the area having more than trebled since the acquisition of the estate by Cordier-Mestrezat. To add to the original 10-hectare purchase, all that remained of the 60 hectares owned by Pierre Ducasse, the new proprietors added a plot of fifteen-year old vines, and a plot of older vines, giving 40 hectares. Thus today the vineyards lie in three different sections, and despite the difficulties above I have managed to identify the location of these vineyards. The first lies around the Grand-Puy to the west of Pauillac, and I suspect these are the original vines, once the nidus of the Ducasse-Grand-Puy-Artigues-Arnaud estate. There is a second plot bordering the vineyards of Château Mouton-Rothschild, Château Lafite-Rothschild and Château Pontet-Canet, and there is a third plot close to the Château Batailley vineyards on the Saint-Lambert plateau.
