Château Pichon Baron: Vineyards
The vineyards are for the main part concentrated on the left-hand side of the D2 as it courses north, the château facing that of Château Pichon Comtesse on the other side of the road, their proximity reflecting the shared origins of these two estates.
The position of the two châteaux can be misleading. As noted in the introductory paragraphs in my profile of Pichon Comtesse, the great swathe of vineyards which runs across the southern part of the Pauillac appellation is largely made up of the vines of Latour, Pichon Comtesse and Pichon Baron. The vineyards of these three estates are stretched, from west to east, across 4 kilometres, admittedly with a little break in the western reaches, near the railway line, for the vineyards of Batailley, Haut-Batailley and Lynch-Bages. In terms of proximity to the Gironde the châteaux buildings would be ranked Latour, Pichon Comtesse and Pichon Baron, suggesting Pichon Comtesse has prime position after Latour. In fact the position of the château of Pichon Comtesse reflects the fact it was built on land purchased from Comte de Beaumont of neighbouring Château Latour; the Pichon Comtesse vines are in fact further inland. Moving inland from the Gironde, after Latour the next vines are those of Pichon Baron.
It therefore should go without saying we are in a real sweet-spot for the Pauillac appellation here. All told the estate accounts for 88 hectares of the appellation, and of this 73 hectares are committed to vines.
The main part of the vineyard is the historic heart of the estate which surrounds the grand château. Here there are 40 hectares of vines, approximately 60% of the entire estate, on the deep Terrace 3 gravel, one of the most desirable terroirs of the Médoc. The gravel is deep, several metres in places, cut with lenses of clay and gravel, as is the case for all of these gravel mounds. Deeper, there is clay, and should you be able to dig deep enough you would no doubt eventually encounter the limestone bedrock of Bordeaux which only tends to come to the surface in large areas on the right bank. It is the gravel that makes Château Pichon Baron what it is though.
