"The Gruaud-Larose estate amounts to 150 hectares of the St Julien appellation, of which 82 hectares are planted to vines; the bulk of the estate lies around Baron Sarget's chateau, separated from the Gironde by the small village of Beychevelle, and sandwiched between the vineyards of Branaire-Ducru and Lagrange.
The terroir is typical for the region, deep Quaternary gravel, planted with 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot and 2% Malbec. The vines average around 45 years of age, and are planted at a density of 10000 vines/ha. The fruit, harvested by hand, is managed by a winemaking team overseen by Jacques Merlaut's son, Jean.
Technical director at the property since 1970, however, is Georges Pauli; he has stayed on through difficult times at Gruaud-Larose, as it passed through the hands of different owners, but he has benefited from continued investment particularly by Alcatel-Alsthom who funded the construction of two new cellars with wooden fermentation vats and a new grape reception room to improve handling and quality of the fruit at harvest time. Nevertheless Pauli must take much of the credit for the maintenance of quality at Gruaud-Larose despite the rapid sequence of new owners and the uncertainty these changes bring.
The fruit is sorted then undergoes a cold-soak prior to temperature controlled fermentation in a mixture of wooden and concrete vats, with pumping over of the fermenting must twice a day. Then up to a third of the vintage undergoes malolactic in oak barrels, before ageing the entire wine in Alliers and Nevers oak (up to 50% new) for eighteen months, and there is a light fining and filtration before bottling. The grand vin is Chateau Gruaud-Larose, of which there are about 25000 cases produced per annum." Winedoctor.com
