Château Petit Gravet

Claude Nouvel has run the property since 1999, when he took over from his grandmother. A little over three and a half hectares in Saint-Émilion Grand Cru.

The house bottles two wines, and the senior one is called Marie-Louise after that grandmother: the name of the woman who left him the estate is the one on the label.

It comes from a single parcel of sixty ares, at the foot of the slope, some nine hundred metres from Saint-Émilion. The soil is the striking part: gravel over deep sand, six to seven metres of it. In an appellation identified with the clay-limestone plateau, a sandy terroir of that depth is another thing entirely.

Forty-five-year-old vines, certified organic farming, ninety per cent merlot and ten per cent cabernet franc.

It should not be confused with Château Petit-Gravet-Aîné, a separate property, headed by Catherine Papon-Nouvel.