Wines of Château Lagrézette: Le Pigeonnier

For ten years now, the Cuvée "Le Pigeonnier" has been the one of the jewels of our estate.

This is a 100% Malbec wine, from vines that are 25 years old, and planted in clay and limestone soil on the third terrace of the Lot, in top-quality land surrounded by stone walls. After being harvested by hand and sorted, in addition to the double annual thinning, the crop is vinified in wooden vats, in new barrels. Then the wine will age in our cellars for 28 months, in barrels made of French oak. Sold in France, this beautifully complex wine also has a solid reputation in the United States, Japan, and Great Britain. The story of how its creation is worth telling. It was in 1997, at the end of a year noted for its heavy frosts, particularly on this section located near the Château. We were obliged, because we had no choice, to reduce our production to 18 hectoliters per hectare, which is very little. At Lagrézette, each parcel is harvested separately; so we can evaluate the quality of each one of them-at the first tastings. The outstanding quality of these casks was immediately apparent. Terroir, variety, low volume and harvest at the peak of maturity... were the circumstances had created the conditions for an unexpected magic to occur. It was Alain-Dominique Perrin’s intuition and genius that made him decide to confirm this chance event, and to reproduce the experiment in the following vintages. Through leaf-pulling and thinning, we have maintained this low volume of 18 hectoliters per hectare, of grapes harvested at full maturity.

This micro cuvée was given the name of the registered Historic Monument which rises above this parcel.

And thus "Le Pigeonnier” was born...

The magic worked perfectly. The promise was fulfilled. 1999 was exceptional, 2001 also. 2005 will be an excellent year.

Parker awarded this wine a rating of 95 out of 100, which he had never before given, to a 100% Malbec varietal. This recognition has quite naturally led to the positioning of Lagrézette on the map of the Great Malbecs of the World.

Comments

[marcus rutherford]

This is a really wonderful wine. We bought a few of bottles of the 1999 Pigeonnier from the vineyard the year it was released, and on 2 August 2008 decided to crack the first open. It accompanied squab pidgeon (well, it seemed appropriate) cooked 3 ways with foie gras and a lavender scented jus. This was followed by seared venison fillet with a rich well reduced red wine, shallot and ginger sauce with fresh young English girolles.
The wine was fantastic, very full and quite complex, easily holding its own against the (admittedly light) ginger flavour of the sauce. We obviously drank the wine at the start of its adult life, but my guess it will be drinking well for another 10 15 years yet. I only wish (given the current price) we had bought more of it at the time.