Bordeaux 2012 Primeurs: Haut-Médoc
Continuing my more detailed exploration of the wines made outside of the famous left bank communes, after Moulis and Listrac we now come to the vineyards of the Haut-Médoc. As regular Bordeaux drinkers will know, the Haut-Médoc appellation is a long and convoluted one, running all the way up the left bank of the Gironde, from north of Bordeaux, terminating shortly after Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, about 60 kilometres to the north. Within this appellation the famous communes of St Estèphe, Pauillac, St Julien and Margaux rise like gravelly islands, so the Haut-Médoc appellation has the appearance of encircling and flanking these smaller communes.
This drawn out and rather convoluted nature gives the Haut-Médoc appellation an unexpected complexity. The reasoning behind where its boundaries have been placed sometimes seems clear, but sometimes it does not. I have already indicated what differentiates the vineyards of the four communes of the central Médoc, (Cussac-Saint-Médoc, Lamarque, Arcins and Soussans) from St Julien to the north, and Margaux to the south, in my Moulis & Listrac 2012 report. It is the relative paucity of gravel, a result of the limestone rise at Listrac. Terroir plays a part in defining other boundaries too. South of Margaux there is an 8-kilometre stretch of marshy land before you reach Bordeaux; here, on little gravelly pockets of resistance, the Haut-Médoc classed growths Château La Lagune and Château Cantemerle can be found. West of St-Julien-Beychevelle the gravel peters out and is mixed with the more sandy soils, the sand having come in from the dunes of Les Landes, to the west, perhaps 3 million years ago. Here, very close to the edge of the St Julien appellation, on soils more gravely than sandy, lie the other three Haut-Médoc classed growths, Château Belgrave, Château La Tour Carnet and Château de Camensac.
