Pauillac

Pauillac grew around its port, which traded bronze in Antiquity. Vineyards spread from the mid-thirteenth century. In the seventeenth century the old lordships passed to Bordeaux's legal nobility, and Dutch drainage opened new land and helped form large estates. From the eighteenth century new plantings were of small-berried varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon above all, and Pauillac became the chief wine port of the Médoc. In 1787 Thomas Jefferson's list of growths already placed Latour and Lafite among the first. A judgment of the Lesparre court on 29 November 1926 gave the Pauillac name to plots in neighbouring communes that had long belonged to Pauillac growths, and the decree of 14 November 1936 took this over. A cooperative has grouped the small growers since 1933.

Pauillac lies 50 km north of Bordeaux on the left bank of the estuary. Its vineyards stand on Quaternary gravel terraces between 3 and 30 m high, about ten metres thick, over Eocene and Oligocene marls and limestones; wind-blown sand fills the hollows, and recent alluvium (palus) lines the estuary. The valleys of Juillac and Gaët divide the commune into three gravel systems: the largest in the south around Saint-Lambert and Bages, a smaller one around Artigues, and a northern one around Le Pouyalet, which ends at the Lafite marsh on the border with Saint-Estèphe. The town and port lie below them on the estuary. The climate is temperate oceanic, regulated by the Atlantic and the Gironde; rainy autumns in some years and hot, sunny late seasons in others give a marked vintage effect.

The specification calls Pauillac very deeply coloured, powerful and structured, thanks to blends in which Cabernet Sauvignon is "particularly dominant"; the resulting tannin gives a remarkable capacity to age, and after long ageing the bouquet becomes very complex. Merlot brings roundness and fruit, and Cabernet Franc, more rarely Petit Verdot, adds structure. The rules root this in gravelly or sandy-gravel soils with little fine wind-blown sand and good permeability, which are among Cabernet Sauvignon's favoured ground, and in the nearby estuary, which protects the vines from climatic extremes.

Pauillac is red only, from the commune of Pauillac and listed parcels in Saint-Estèphe, Saint-Julien-Beychevelle and Saint-Sauveur. The grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Carménère. The rules require at least 7,000 vines per hectare, though actual planting is far denser; the base yield is 57 hl/ha, and wines are aged until at least 1 June after the harvest. Long macerations build tannin for ageing.

Large estates farm about 90 % of the vineyard. With 18 classified growths, including the first growths Lafite Rothschild and Latour (1855) and Mouton Rothschild (promoted in 1973), the commune has more than any other. About sixty small growers remain, many in the cooperative.