Chateau Lascombes

Chateau Lascombes is classified as a second growth wine according to the 1855 Clasification and is part of the Margaux appellation. The Chateau bears the name of its original owner Chevalier de Lascombes, though it is currently owned by a joint venture between Colony Capital and Yves Vatelot (there are rumors it is up for sale if you have a spare $80+ million or so).

The average age of the vines is 35 years and they have 84 hectares planted consisting of 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. Which is interesting, because the first wine is generally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon (the 2005 vintage is 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot),

Two things that repeatedly struck me as I visited Chateaux throughout Bordeaux were the size and the history. The current Chateau (in the first picture) was built in 1867 (making it one of the newer Chateaux I saw during my visit).

The harvest and fermentation process is pretty cool. The grapes are all harvested by hand, they they are bought to the vibrating sorting tables in the third picture. Sorting is also done by hand to weed out any bad grapes. Then the grapes are slightly crushed and cooled using a carbon dioxide slow cooling method. They have a combination of oak and underground storage vats, and grapes from different parts of the vineyard are stored in different vats.

From the vats they are moved into the barrels, lees and all. This means that the barrels have to be constantly rotated so that the lees don't have time to collect in the bottom of the barrel. After about 4 months of aging with the Lees, the wine is removed from the barrels, the barrels are scrubbed and the wine, sans lees, is placed back into the barrels to age for an additional 18-20 months.

The final stage of the aging process is when the wine is fined with egg whites to remove the last of the sediment.