Château La Rose-Pourret

Pourret is a lieu-dit on the western flank of Saint-Émilion, a kilometre out of the town on the road to Libourne, and several crus carry the name; La Fleur Pourret next door belongs to the Manoncourts of Figeac. La Rose Pourret was the Warion family’s for five generations and the better part of a century; the Hachette listed them year after year, a reliable eight hectares of seventy per cent Merlot with both Cabernets, thirty thousand bottles, sold entirely by the family. Where the rose in the name comes from, nobody has written down.

In 2018 the Derichebourg family bought it: Daniel Derichebourg, who built a large recycling business and had already bought wine estates on the Riviera, and whose group also owns Domaine Guy Bocard in Meursault, which is how two of our producers share an owner. The decision was taken in February and the keys came in July, and the first act was to begin organic conversion that same month, with Ecocert; the estate was certified from the 2021 vintage. The team is small and named: Bruno Lacoste, the consulting oenologist, and Daniel Desplat, the vineyard manager, who came with organic experience. The Girondine house was re-roofed and refaced, a steel vat room and a barrel cellar were built, and a wine bar, Le Comptoir de La Rose, opened in a stone house across the lane with the bell tower in view.

Une seule volonté nous guide : retranscrire dans nos vins la pureté du grand terroir de Saint-Émilion.

Château La Rose Pourret

Nine hectares in one piece on the north-west plateau below the town, homogeneous enough that the estate describes the soil in a sentence: sand and silt over deep clay, with the crasse de fer, the iron pan, that the old Hachette entries always mentioned and that the Figeac side of Saint-Émilion is known for. Half the vines are fifty years old; the rest is being restructured a few rows at a time, planted at 6,666 to the hectare and cropped around thirty-five hectolitres. The blend is now 85 per cent Merlot and 15 Cabernet Franc (the Cabernet Sauvignon of the Warion years has gone), with Malbec planted to add, in the estate’s words, generosity and gourmandise.

The addition is the hectare and a half bought immediately after the sale on the north slope of the limestone plateau, studied for two years and planted in 2021, mostly to Cabernet Franc: the parcel that, the estate says, will give the Cabernet its depth.

No pesticide, herbicide or synthetic product since July 2018; green-manure cover crops of beans and peas between the rows; the vineyard team’s obsession, as they put it, is “adapting to each parcel, to the raw material and to the fermentation conditions.” Each plot goes to its own vat. The new vat room is truncated-cone stainless with a double thermal circuit, so one tank can be heated while another is cooled, and a glycol loop for a cold pre-fermentation soak to pull the fruit forward; the old concrete vats stand beside it and are still used. Extraction is by pump-over, the vatting about a month.

Then barrel, mostly (the new cellar holds two vintages at eighteen degrees): a third new, a third second-fill, with a share of the élevage in concrete and, from the 2022 vintage, twenty per cent in terracotta amphorae. The Hachette, which has not stopped listing the property under its new owners, gave the 2020 a star and the 2022 another: corsé et séveux, porté par des tanins puissants… Patience.

Notre objectif est de produire un vin dense qui exprime le terroir dans une conduite d’agriculture biologique.

Bruno Lacoste and Daniel Desplat

Antonio Galloni, Vinous, on the 2020: “A very pretty, silky Saint-Émilion. Crushed flowers, red berry fruit, mocha, spice and new leather all grace this attractive, mid-weight 2020… elegant and charming. Best of all, it will drink well right out of the gate.” Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Advocate, 89–91: “baked black plums, chocolate-covered cherries and kirsch, plus hints of dried lavender, powdered cinnamon and sautéed Provence herbs… framed by plush tannins.” James Suckling, 90–91: “A firm, silky red with medium body and nicely polished tannins.” Jeb Dunnuck, 89–91: “a rich, medium-bodied, nicely textured Saint-Émilion that offers good tannins and solid length. It could easily be outstanding.” And on the 2019: “a terrific floral quality… plenty of upfront appeal yet should keep nicely for over a decade.”

The Guide Hachette on the 2020, one star: “lovely notes of vanilla and ripe fruit, prolonged by a balanced palate, at once lively, solid and silky… all indicated for a côte de bœuf.” Galloni has stayed with the property through the 2025 en primeur: the 2023 “a potent, dark Saint-Émilion,” the 2025 “elegant and classy all the way.”

Elegant and charming. Best of all, it will drink well right out of the gate.

Antonio Galloni, Vinous, on the 2020