Chateau Cambon La Pelouse 2014
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Wine
Enthusiast - Decanter
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Blend: 49% Merlot, 47% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a tight and firm wine that will take some time to develop. The fruit, an almost equal blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, is all present and will fill out over the next few years. It is a serious dense wine with great aging potential. Drink from 2021.
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Decanter
Classic, deep and reserved, with a eucalyptus and black pepper spice accompanied by well-integrated oak and firm, grippy tannins. Will reward further cellaring.
Other Vintages
2015-
Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling -
Jeb
Dunnuck
Cambon la Pelouse is located in Macau, between Chateau Giscours and Chateau Cantemerle, just outside the Margaux appellation. The estate is rich in history, changing hands many times over the past few centuries.
The property was originally the Seigneury of Lapelouze, owned by the sire of Antiège, the adviser and secretary of the king. He sold it to Jean de Cambon-Lapelouze in the late 1600’s. During the French Revolution, the estate was seized as a national property, but then returned to Jean de Cambon-Lapelouze. After Jean’s death, the estate was inherited by his only daughter, Coralie. After more changes in ownership, a crippling frost in 1956 and replantings in the 1970’s, the estate was sold to Annick and Jean-Pierre Marie, owners of Château Trois Moulins.
Annick and Jean-Pierre Marie have made great investments and renovations in the property. In 2001 they added an effluent treatment plant, and in 2009, the winery began converting its vineyards to sustainable & organic farming. Today the vineyard is farmed under the "culture raisonnee" method - hand-harvesting, pruning, thinning out of the leaves, green harvesting and destemming ensures the perfect quality of the grapes.
Cambon la Pelouse covers 149 acres (60 hectares), with wines averaging 30 years old. The winery produces Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc & Petit Verdot. The soil is made of fine and larger gravel from the quaternary period. Wines are crafted under ‘viticulture master’ Guillaume Levasseur and winemaker Olivier Pascaud.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
While it claims the same basic landscape as the Medoc—only every so slightly elevated above river level—the Haut Medoc is home to all of the magnificent chateaux of the Left Bank of Bordeaux, creating no lack of beautiful sites to see.
These chateaux, residing over the classed-growth cru in the villages of Margaux, Moulis, Listrac, St-Julien, Pauillac and St. Estephe are within the Haut Medoc appellation. Though within the confines of these villages, any classed-growth chateaux will most certainly claim village or cru status on their wine labels.
Interestingly, some classed-growth cru of the Haut Medoc fall outside of these more famous villages and can certainly be a source of some of the best values in Bordeaux. Deep in color, and concentrated in ripe fruit and tannins, these wines (typically Cabernet Sauvignon-based) often prove the same aging potential of the village classed-growths. Among these, the highest ranked chateaux are Chateau La Lagune and Chateau Cantemerle.