One Of The Best Wines In A Classic Region Improves A Lesser Known Estate

“Calm down, stop growing. Focus on ripening the fruit.”

These are the words that winemaker Nicolas Glumineau tells some of his vines, the ones with too much vigor - placing too much energy into growing leaves at the expense of neglecting the grapes. But he doesn’t communicate it with words or music or give it artificial chemicals. Only one teaspoon, four grams, of natural sand called silica is needed to spray two-and-a-half acres and, like magic, the results are immediate: the vine relaxes and stops growing the canopy so it can place all its efforts giving energy to ripen grapes in a balanced way, including the skins and seeds, to turn these grapes into outstanding fine wine. It is a communication between the farmer and the vines that is beyond the scientific knowledge that Nicolas has gained over decades, as he hasn’t found one scientific book that explains this process.

“How does it work? Just don’t ask. I just don’t know,” says Nicolas.

Making a Top Wine Better

As a young man who was determined to learn everything he could about the science of growing wine grapes and winemaking, working his way up through top châteaux in Bordeaux, he could have never guessed that he would one day surrender to employing practices that he could never understand. But with age, one goes beyond knowledge and comes into wisdom, letting go of the idea that everything needs to be understood. He is happy as long as he sees the improvement in the vineyards with his own eyes and, more importantly, tastes the improvement in the finished wines. He is unsure if he will ever understand why a tablespoon of silica, a biodynamic preparation, can communicate with the vines in such a direct and precise way.

Nicolas, general manager as well as winemaker at Château Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande (a Second Growth also known as Château Pichon-Lalande), in the world-famous appellation of Pauillac in the region of Bordeaux in France, has been able to achieve over the past six reviewed vintages, 2016-2022, four 100-point wines for this incredible château, that has made great wines before Nicolas. Still, somehow, he has consistently brought the wines to the next level. Part of it is a new winery facility where they can practice more artisanal practices by fermenting smaller plots from the vineyard. Still, the precision in the vineyards is remarkable, staying on top of every tiny section of their vineyards to give each vine exactly what it needs while becoming organic in the process, and now, practicing biodynamics- something Nicolas, at one time, could have never imagined that he would be a part of.

Château de Pez

The owners of Château Pichon-Lalande, the Rouzaud family, also owns Château de Pez, located in the appellation of Saint-Estèphe, north of Pauillac in the Left Bank of Bordeaux. The area hasn’t had a long, illustrious history like Pauillac, which is known for some of the most outstanding wines in the world, as there are a couple of problems. First, the main road that goes up to all the grand chateaux in the Left Bank ends in the area of Pauillac. One has to turn onto a tiny side road to even get to the estates in Saint-Estèphe, so it is off-the-beaten-track, but most notably, as many drink these wines without ever visiting Bordeaux, the fierce structure with higher acidity and lots of rugged tannins, that traditionally was kindly referred to as “sinewy,” was an unpleasant aspect for some wine drinkers.

Nicolas Glumineau has taken the same extraordinary practices for Château Pichon-Lalande and brought them to Château de Pez, refining them for the different terroir (weather, soil and aspect) to ideally match that estate, and has been able to bring a significant improvement to wines that are an utter bargain on the market and introduced a 2nd selection of Château de Pez simply called “2nd Pez” with a modern label which would have also been unheard of for a traditionally minded Bordeaux wine producer. But at this stage, Nicolas and his team are challenging themselves to make the top wine in the region as well as having a better connection to a wider range of wine consumers.

But a few estates in Saint-Estèphe have, in recent times, learned to tame those sinewy tannins. Certainly, Mother Nature has helped with warmer temperatures, making sure that all the Cabernet Sauvignon grapes are fully ripe, as opposed to in the past, when it was impossible to ripen one of the main grape varieties for the Left Bank, leaving under-ripe skins and seeds that gave green notes and tough texture in the wines. But today, some in Saint-Estèphe, such as Château de Pez, have been able to bring a finer quality to the structure of these wines and allow the special attributes of this area, such as an intense spiciness and minerality, to come through the wines making them no longer a Bordeaux wine that one bought because it is a lot less expensive, but instead, a wine that some drinkers prefer because they love that spicy, mineral quality and the lower price is just an added benefit.

Even though getting the right lovely quality of tannins involves not over-extracting too much from the grapes’ skins and seeds, a major factor goes back to the vineyards. Again, the intense attention to detail paid to the vines and what each one tells Nicolas and his team is the primary key to making a harmonious, balanced wine with aromatic complexity and exceptional quality tannins.

Nature Has the Answers

“We are very close to the ocean, and we are very dependent on tides, the moon cycle, and there is something to that cycle that affects the vines,” says Nicolas, with a slight look of astonishment that these words are coming out of his mouth. He has studied with some of the most legendary teachers in Bordeaux and is part of growing up in an age of rigorous scientific research that has made discoveries beyond his grandparents’ imagination. But he has witnessed with his own eyes what the vines have shown him in terms of what works and what doesn’t.

And so, instead of forcing the vines to his will, manipulating their cycle with unnatural means, he tries to speak to them in the most natural ways possible, trusting that if he gives them what they need to be a balanced, healthy plant, they will produce the best fruit possible. And he has shown the world how well it works, first with the already outstanding Château Pichon-Lalande, displaying that even greatness has room for improvement, and then Château de Pez, who was hiding beneath a mountain of rugged tannins, and now, as those tannins have taken on a more silky quality, a wealth of beauty can shine from these wines.

2019 2nd Pez, Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux: 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 38% Merlot and 4% Petit Verdot. The second wine, the second selection of Château de Pez. Pretty nose of anise seed, blackcurrant leaf, and exotic spice box with fine tannins with blackberry compote, crushed stones and bright acidity with a long finish leaving a note of saline minerality.

2019 Château de Pez, Saint-Estèphe, Bordeaux: 56% Cabernet Sauvignon, 42% Merlot, 1% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot. An elegantly complex nose of smoldering sandalwood incense, violets, wet stones and juicy cassis flavors is balanced by fresh tobacco wrapped in silky tannins and a very long, vibrant finish.

2015 Réserve de Pichon Comtesse, Pauillac, Bordeaux: 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. The second wine, the second selection of Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande. This wine is breathtaking for its overall finesse, especially considering it is a second wine. An enchanting perfume of wildflowers, warm raspberries and cocoa powder that opens to succulent fruit and manicured tannins laced with a minerality that has a gorgeous finish that makes one want to drink the whole bottle.

2014 Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac, Bordeaux: 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 22% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 6% Petit Verdot. Multilayered complexity with rosehips, graphite and upheaved earth all intertwined with a well-integrated structure that gives a supple quality and a very focused finish with tremendous energy.

2010 Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Pauillac, Bordeaux: 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. A nose that transports with sea spray, rainforest after a storm and a cooling breeze bringing faint aromas of pine with rich raspberry liqueur flavors and is tinged with fresh leather with a superb length of flavor, sensuous with its velvety texture.