Best plots of land for winemaking

[drcheung]

Hello,

I was in a Bordeaux a few months ago and stumbled into the wine shop Chai Mica. I was talking to who I thought was the manager or owner and was telling him my love for Montrose. He then told me that the best plots of land for winemaking in Bordeaux were: Montrose, Latour, Leoville Las Cases and Lafite.

I then left but never got to ask him why he thought these chateaus were what he considered had the best land.

Any thoughts/theories?

[DavidG]

Welcome to BWE drcheung!

The answer is terroir: microclimate, soil, exposure to sun, etc.
Debates over influence of terroir vs. intervention by the winemaker have existed for decades.
Right bank properties are notably missing from his list.

What Bordeaux have you tried and liked? Any of those mentioned by the shopkeeper? They’re all BWE favorites.

[RPCV]

Very complex as David mentions. Nice scientific review below:

https://oeno-one.eu/article/view/2208

[AlexR]

Hi,

I did as blog report about Chai Mica two years ago:
https://bordeauxwineblog.com/chai-mica- ... -bordeaux/

Your question is a very involved one touching on many fields of science (geology, climatology,chemistry, viticulture, etc.).

Here are a couple of books on the subject:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/160 ... ate-change

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/641972.Terroir

Best regards,
Alex R.

[drcheung]

Welcome to BWE drcheung!

The answer is terroir: microclimate, soil, exposure to sun, etc.
Debates over influence of terroir vs. intervention by the winemaker have existed for decades.
Right bank properties are notably missing from his list.

What Bordeaux have you tried and liked? Any of those mentioned by the shopkeeper? They’re all BWE favorites.

Have tried a few from Leoville Barton, Montrose and LLC! Any thoughts on why he singled out those four as having the best terroir?

[DavidG]

Welcome to BWE drcheung!

The answer is terroir: microclimate, soil, exposure to sun, etc.
Debates over influence of terroir vs. intervention by the winemaker have existed for decades.
Right bank properties are notably missing from his list.

What Bordeaux have you tried and liked? Any of those mentioned by the shopkeeper? They’re all BWE favorites.

Have tried a few from Leoville Barton, Montrose and LLC! Any thoughts on why he singled out those four as having the best terroir?

How did you like them? I personally wouldn’t disagree with any of those based on my own experience, though I think there are others that could be added to the list of “best.” We’ve done a BWE classification in the not too distant past where most of us expressed our preferences. That takes both terroir and winemaker decisions into account, since both influence what ends up in the bottle:
http://www.bordeauxwineenthusiasts.com/ ... f=4&t=9325.
We tried to ignore cost. But there have been threads on best bang for the buck (QPR, quality/price ratio): http://www.bordeauxwineenthusiasts.com/ ... =4&t=10362

I’m far from an expert on the technical nuances of soil, climate, exposure, etc. contributing to terroir. RPCV’s link above goes into a fair amount of detail.

Those estates are consensus choices of most of the experts. I’ll usually take their word without understanding all of the complexities unless my own tasting experience seems to conflict.

It’s quite possible the shopkeeper had extensive tasting experience and his recommendation may have been based on that and extrapolation back to terroir. Or given that he is in Bordeaux, he may have visited those and other estates and learned first hand from site visits, like our own AlexR. Or maybe he had a financial incentive to promote those particular estates. Expensive bottles = more profit? Maybe that was what was in stock?