Château Pape Clément

History

The estate owes its name to Bertrand de Goth, who received these vines in 1252 before becoming Archbishop of Bordeaux and then, in 1305, the first French pope under the name of Clément V — giving it a unique origin among the Bordeaux grands crus. The 19th century saw the establishment of the hierarchy of the Grand Crus of Graves, enshrined in the 1953 classification. In 1985, Bernard Magrez acquired the castle — his very first vineyard — and gave it a new impetus, before building over the decades a set of 42 vineyards in 10 countries.

Château Pape Clément, Grand Cru Classé de Graves in Pessac, is one of the oldest vineyards in Bordeaux: its first harvest dates back to 1252. Owned by Bernard Magrez since 1985 — his very first vineyard, before he became the sole owner of four Bordeaux Grands Crus Classés — the estate combines seven centuries of history with a process of permanent innovation, in particular via satellite imagery (partnership with Deep Planet, supported by the European Space Agency) to anticipate the effects of climate change on the vineyard.

The Vineyard

The Pessac-Léognan vineyard, on the gravels that characterize the appellation, is vinified plot by plot: the wooden vat room, redeveloped in 2007, has 28 vats each corresponding to a different age and grape variety — a "parcelization" that allows to assemble or separate the lots according to the complexity of each micro-terroir. The sorting of the harvest is manual, and the wines are aged in barrels, 70% new for the great wine (18 months) and 30% for the second wine, Le Clémentin (12 months).