Château Lagrange
Ranking: Third growth (1855 Classification)
Appellation: St Julien
Owner: Suntory
Ten-second primer: A run-down property acquired by Suntory in 1983, the investment provided by the Japanese owners brought new life to Lagrange. This huge estate is today turning out fine St Julien, combining quality and value. Wines made by manager Matthieu Bordes and team.
This profile includes: Six pages of history and detail (links above), and tasting notes back to 1924.
There is no shortage of great wines being made in the appellation of St Julien. With cru classé estates dominating this commune’s 920 hectares, accounting for perhaps 90% of the vineyards, led by the likes of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou and Château Léoville-Las-Cases, perhaps this is no surprise. Look just one step lower in the 1855 classification, though, and we find two other châteaux which, with all the limelight falling on those illustrious second growths, manage to offer not only quality, but also value. One is Château Langoa-Barton, which sits right alongside the D2 as it runs from Beychevelle north towards St Julien. The other is to be found at the western edge of the commune, a final St Julien flourish before the vineyards of the Haut-Médoc take over, in the shape of Château Belgrave, Château de Camensac and Château La Tour Carnet.
The estate in question is, of course, Château Lagrange.
As well as its wine, Château Lagrange should also be noted is its architecture. Like many other famous names of the appellation, it is graced by a rather attractive château, built of a creamy-yellow stone. This particular château boasts an unusual feature though, one which places it second only to Cos d’Estournel in the cru classé curiosity stakes. The feature in question is the tower positioned on the left-hand side of the château, dwarfing – in terms of height at least – its companion building. Added much later, and clearly drawing on Italian themes, this tower (pictured below – as best I could, shooting through the trees) would not look out of place if it were towering above a 14th-century duomo in the heart of a Tuscan town. With its tall and square design, and its traditionally arranged Romanesque arched windows – three on the upper floor, two on the floor below and one on the lowest – it is Italian as Chianti, pizza fiorentina and Raf Vallone in The Italian Job. The original one, obviously, not that nonsense Hollywood remake.
It is not only in the Italianate proportions of its tower that Château Lagrange has cause to look beyond France. This is one of only a handful of big-name estates in Bordeaux to be in foreign business ownership, in this case Suntory, a Japanese drinks and distilling group. But that is Château Lagrange’s modern history; before coming to that, I have as usual one or two historical details to present.
