Book Review: Chateau Cantemerle

[AKR]

Book Review: Chateau Cantemerle
prose & photos by Valerie Labadie, translation by Jane Anson
released 2018

This is a big coffee table style art/picture book intended to be sold in tasting rooms, or presented as a gift with a bottle. Hard backed, with tons of high quality yet generic vineyard pictures. It was written in French, and translated, and there is awkwardness to the prose, which is hard to tell whether it was from the floweriness of the original, or the translator's rendition. But it's understandable even if there are some strange gaps where paragraphs get finished six pages later, and you wonder if something was lost when cutting & pasting this together.

The first section of the book covers the extraordinary history of the families involved, the name, and how it made its way into the classified growths. The author covers with a balanced hand the awkward years of Cordier management, as well as the ownership cycles, as its been owned by a sleepy French mutual assurance co. for the last 40-50 years. The second part covers the feudal history and association with the English. The third section covers the terroir, and this part really could have been much better. This would have been a natural place to put vineyard maps, soil tables, plates of the geology etc....but those were not included. Just empty filler pages of pictures of grapes & trees. There is a little discussion of the gravel stones, and the pruning process, but its weak in this dimension. Then the authors dive into the vinification and cellar management, with a surprising little discussion on the press wine. Apparently the 2nd pressings are graded in 4 levels, across all 600-700 barrels. They don't discuss what its all intended for, but presumably some is added back to the free run, first run juice to add some spine. Here the pictures of the cellar hands, and the work are interesting. Apparently Cantemerle has 42 full time staff, and 100 seasonal hands for the harvest. That seems ok for 50-60k case production. This section also discusses the assemblage, and gives a shoutout to the discreet Eric Boissenot, who seems to advise on this. The final section covers some of the personalities involved - owners, long time staff, the housemaster, etc. Here the vanity aspects of the book come out, as I really doubt readers care about the insurance co. execs who bought the place*

It's a good book, especially for enthusiasts of the estate. Not sure I'd pay the stated $45 release price, but for $11 for an excellent used copy on Amazon, fair enough, and one I'll put on the library shelf. Thinking it over, Jane Anson is unlikely to be at fault for the for the weird prose, as she can write well about wine in English. It's an easy, breezy book mostly because there are so many low information content pictures, and took 1.5 hours to read. I read it laying down on the couch, since the surly cat had seized my reading chair. The villainous heat that global climate improvement has brought about has made the long haired Maine coon grouchy.

https://www.amazon.com/Ch%C3%A2teau-Can ... 1419730894

* I have a good friend who worked for AXA, another French insurer, a long time ago, and they own quite a spectrum of top French estates. He was able to buy some of their wines at quite attractive prices through the employee program they had back then! It seems to be the thing among that sector.

[Musigny 151]

Thanks, very interesting. I understand their inclusion in the 1855 classification was a later addition, and written in pencil. Do they discuss that in any detail?

[AKR]

Yes they do! Apparently they sold so much directly in the 1850's to end clients - outside La Place - that the brokers weren't going to include them. The owners showed the prices the wine commanded, via many receipts, and apparently that convinced the brokers to include it in the 5th. But perhaps there was another quid pro quo, as Cantemerle stopped direct sales to the English & Dutch afterwards, and joined the marketing/brokering/distribution system.

So that initial addition, in pencil, which had been a question mark, was eventually formalized when the printed edition of the 1855 was released. I wonder if this is what gave the owners of Mouton the idea to lobby for their inclusion among the Firsts.

[Musigny 151]

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense.

One interesting fact was that the owners limited the wines that were within a day there and a day back in a carriage, so I believe Calon Segur was the furthest out. At least that is what the original owners of De Pez and Sociando maintain.

[AKR]

It's all like the craziness people on dog pedigree boards argue over though.

I had not really understood the whole Cordier / Cantemerle linkage until reading the book though.

That seems like a section that a lawyer took a look at after the manuscript was composed.

[Blanquito]

Love me some Cantemerle. That big vertical with La Lagune at Dale's was really eye-opening... I knew I liked Cantemerle, I just didn't realize how much before that night:

I loaded up on 05, 09 and especially 10 Cantemerle. Hope they develop like the 80’s vintages did (you can apply this statement to virtually every post-1990 bordeaux in my cellar).

Leaving the subject of 05 claret, that Cantemerle and Lagune vertical I went to at Dale’s place in 2014 was so instructive. To wit, I found out that Cantemerle is a much better wine than I thought. At a minimum, select years from the 60’s, 70’s and the 82, 83, 85 and 89 are terrific, world class wines in a winsome, age worthy, elegant, complex, refreshing, Burgundian style. They’ll never make you forget the 86 Mouton, but these aren’t wimpy wines. And when you factor in price, wow I love this chateau. Cantemerle is to the southern Medoc what Sociando is to the north.

Here’s the link to that vertical:
https://www.cellartracker.com/classic/e ... vent=25304