Château La Violette

Review of the Estate

The small Pomerol vineyard of Chateau La Violette is located on the top of the Pomerol plateau. The old vine Merlot planted in the vineyard is close to 60 years old. In fact, many of their vines are even older. Chateau La Violette is located not far from Chateau Trotanoy Le Pin. Sadly, Catherine Pere Verge, the grand woman of the Right Bank passed away far too young from cancer the day before she was going to present her wines at a dinner for friends and members of the press, April 2013. She will be missed. Today, the group of chateaux is all quite ably managed by Henri Parent, the son of Catherine Pere-Verge.

The small 1.8-hectare vineyard of La Violette is now fully planted to 100% Merlot. At one point in time, there were also Cabernet Franc vines planted, but those vines have been removed and replaced with Merlot.

The vineyard has some very old Merlot vines that are close to 75 years of age. The tiny production makes this one of the harder wines to find in Pomerol! The terroir at La Violette is a complex mix of clay and limestone with gravel and iron deposits that run deep into the soil.

The vineyard consists of 4 plots in two main parcels. Those 4 main plots are further divided into 20 smaller parcels. The best terroir is placed between Le Pin and Trotanoy. Those vines are the heart and soul of La Violette.

The second parcel, which is close to Feytit Clinet is not on the plateau and thus, those vines are placed in Chateau Montviel, one of their other estates. The vines are planted to a density of 5,500 vines per hectare for the old vines. The young vines are planted at a much higher density of 7,700 vines per hectare.

At Chateau La Violette, vineyard management requires three days a week be spent manicuring each individual bunch, removing any green or pink berries from around the "wings" to ensure a perfectly uniform ripening of the grapes.

Aside from serious sorting of the grapes, all the berries are destemmed by hand. Harvests are conducted in several pickings. The yields are low. For example, in 2009, it was a microscopic 20 hectoliters per hectare! 2012 Chateau La Violette was made from even lower yields of 18 hectoliters per hectare!

To produce the wine of Chateau La Violette, after harvest and intense sorting, the berries are hand destemmed by up to 60 workers. Next, the whole berry fruit undergoes cold maceration for close to 20 days before fermentation in 100% new, French oak barrels from Saury using the micro vinification process. Malolactic fermentation is performed in the barrel.

On average, the production of La Violette is close to a tiny 250 cases per year, making Chateau La Violette one of the harder to find, and more expensive Pomerol wines.

Chateau La Violette is one of the most exciting wines made in the Pomerol today. At its best, Chateau La Violette is filled with countless layers of dense, rich, opulent dark berry, floral and chocolate tones. The palate enjoys a bath of pure velvet and satin. This is a very sensuous style of Pomerol that marries opulence with the concentration and purity of fruit. One of the key characteristics of this Bordeaux wine is the haunting smell of violets. Good luck finding any.

Clearly, Chateau La Violette is the true jewel in the Pere-Verge Pomerol crown! Trust me on this, in the years to come, this will be one of the most expensive, in-demand wines of the Pomerol and it's certainly, going to cost a lot more money than it does today.

Chateau La Violette Wine List