Château Belle-Vue

Château Belle-Vue

【The border is a single ditch — next door to Margaux, some of Bordeaux's oldest Petit Verdot】

The D2, the Route des Châteaux, runs through the great addresses of the Médoc. Just south of Margaux, in the village of Macau, Château Belle-Vue stands quietly. Stop at the edge of its vines and what lies in front of you are the vineyards of Château Giscours, a Margaux third growth. All that separates the two is a single water channel — a jalle — dug by Dutch engineers in the seventeenth century to drain the marshes. On the administrative map this is Haut-Médoc, yet the deep gravel beneath your feet is no different from that of Margaux. Belle-Vue's strength begins with this fortunate address.

The other thing that makes the château one of a kind is Petit Verdot. Late-ripening and temperamental, it is a variety most growers use as a seasoning of a few per cent at most — yet Belle-Vue devotes 15 to 20% of its vineyard to it. Better still, some parcels hold vines planted in the 1930s, among the oldest Petit Verdot in all Bordeaux. These veterans give the wine its scent of violets and spice, and a taut framework you will not find elsewhere.

The man who brought these sleeping vineyards back to life is Vincent Mulliez, who acquired the property in 2004. Coming to wine from an unlikely background at JP Morgan, he brought thoroughgoing hand-work to some fifteen hectares of vines: careful debudding, hand-harvesting, a cold soak of around 5°C lasting up to twenty days, macerations on the skins running as long as forty-five days, and délestage carried out by gravity rather than pumps. Malolactic fermentation takes place in barrel, and the wine is bottled after fourteen to sixteen months of ageing. Built from roughly 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and the Petit Verdot, it marries the generosity of ripe black fruit to tannins that stretch out with real suppleness.

That quality was recognised in the revised Cru Bourgeois classification of 2020, which placed Belle-Vue in the top tier as a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel; the estate also holds HVE environmental certification. More recently a special cuvée, Petit Verdot by Belle-Vue, has appeared, made solely from hand-selected old-vine Petit Verdot raised in amphora and 400-litre casks. Just 15,000 bottles a year — a wine only this vineyard could produce.

Quietly, but with real conviction, right beside the classified growths. Belle-Vue is a bottle for anyone who would rather choose a wine by what is in it than by the name on the label.