Château Tertre-Roteboeuf: Vineyards
As I have already explained in my introduction to the wines of Château Tertre-Roteboeuf, the name is a conjunction of the original Tertre, with the suffix Roteboeuf, which can be found on older maps of the region. There are 5.5 hectares of vines all told, occupying a slope which stretches up to the château, which is in fact a 18th-century farmhouse with attached cellars, and running down to the sandy expanse that continues on to the Dordogne below. Those that run up the slope (as pictured in part two) are Roteboeuf (this was where the wheezing, coughing, burping oxen earned this section of the vineyard its name), says François, while those arranged around the top of this half-amphitheatre are Tertre (as shown in the image in part four). He employs one worker per hectare, so there are at least five full-time staff here.
The vines sit at an altitude which is 20 metres lower than that of Troplong-Mondot, which lies perhaps 1 kilometre to the north-west and is one of the nearest of the more significant St Emilion estates. To the west, also close by, lie Pavie and Larcis-Ducasse. The estate sits on a peninsula of rock jutting out from the main St Emilion plateau, and the slopes drain water very easily; François feels his soils are very much drier than those of his peers as a consequence. The exposure is towards the south and east, and therefore worthy of comparison with Burgundy, says François. This is, in his mind, the most “exotic” vineyard of this part of St Emilion, the vines bearing fruit on the limit of balance between confiture and freshness.
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