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The history of Chateau Lafite

In all parts of the world, among the wine kings of various schools and schools, the most famous wine king should be Lafite Village in Bordeaux, France. Chateau Lafite is located on a gravel hill in the north of the village of Poillet in the Pauillac district of Bordeaux, France, with unique climate and soil conditions. Covering an area of ​​178 hectares (of which the vineyard area covers 103 hectares), the area ranks first among the five first-class wineries, and is larger than most second- and third-class wineries.

Winery History

The name “Lafite” is derived from the medieval southern French dialect “la hite”, which means “small hill”.

Chateau Lafite was founded in 1354 by a nobleman surnamed Lafite and was quite famous in the 14th century. In 1675, she was purchased by the Duke of Xigang (JDSegur), the number one person in the wine industry at that time. Xigang was in the wine world at the time, he also owned the top historical Chateau Latour, Chateau Mouton and Chateau Calon-Segur. King Louis XIV of France once said that the Xigang family may be the richest family in France.

In the seventeenth century, France was basically the world of Burgundy wine. However, Bombardier, the mistress of Louis XV, the famous “society” of the upper class at that time, had a soft spot for Lafite. Make Lafite often become the cup of the nobles of Versailles. After the death of the third-generation head of the Xigang family in 1755, Lafite property entered a more chaotic historical period. But the quality of Lafite still does not disappoint.

It was not until 1868 that Sir James Rothschild (Baron James Rothschild) won the bid at a public auction for 4.4 million francs. The family has owned Lafite until now, and has been able to maintain the quality of Lafite and the reputation of the world’s top wines to this day. The current owner, Eric de Rothchild, the Baron of Rothschild, took office in 1974. His innovative and painstaking management has made Lafite wine out of the ordinary in the 1960s and 1970s and regain its peak.

Winery Rating

Wine lovers will know that Bordeaux rated the region’s famous chateaux in 1855. At that time, they selected 61 of the most outstanding estates called Grand Cru Classe from the starry manor. There are 5 levels in 61. There are four of them on the first level, they are Chateau Lafite, Chateau Latour, Chateau Margaux and Chateau Haut-Brion. Of the four, Lafite ranked first.

Winery Overview

Among the 178 hectares of land in the current Lafite estate, 107 hectares are vineyards. These top vineyards are distributed in three areas, the hills surrounding the themed buildings of the estate, the Carruades plateau west of the castle, and the adjacent estate. About 4.5 hectares of concession land in the village of Saint-Estèphe.

The characteristics of these three areas are that the sunshine is particularly abundant, and the subsoil is Tertiary chalk soil, mixed with the sandy and gravel soil conditions formed by weathering, which provides excellent drainage performance for grape planting.

The main planting varieties in the garden are the top Cabernet Sauvignon (Cabernet Sauvignon), which accounts for 68%, other grape varieties include 28% Merlot (Merlot), 3% Cabernet Franc (Cabernet Franc), and 1% % Small Dimension (Petite Verdot). The average age of each vine is 35 years old.

It is worth mentioning that the estate will not use newly cultivated grapes below 10 years old for winemaking (about 20 hectares), and the average age of the grapes to make top wines has reached 45 years old. around 118 years old, the grapes on the plot called La Gravière (La Gravière) were planted in 1886, and the other two plots were over 80 years old. age.

The vineyard is managed by Charles Chevallier, Lafite’s technical director, through careful cultivation and the use of different fertilization strategies on grapes of different ages to ensure that the grapes harvested each year represent the best local grapes in Bordeaux. Since Lafite Manor is adjacent to Ch.Duhart-Milon, also owned by Rothschild, the two estates have been managed by the same team since 1962.

They all use the most traditional brewing process, strictly control the yield, and ensure that they are picked by hand during the ripening season every year. In fact, most of the year in the vineyard is done manually. So to a certain extent Ch.Duhart-Milon can also represent the highest craftsmanship of Lafite winemaking in terms of grape quality.

Lafite still holds the record for the most expensive bottle of wine in the world. At Christie’s in London in 1985, a bottle of Lafite signed by then US President Thomas Jefferson in 1787 sold for a sky-high £105,000 Won by Malcolm Forbes, owner of Forbes Magazine. The Rothschild family, the owners of the Lafite estate, acquired the Bordeaux-class estates in 2008 and acquired a number of vineyards in the United States and South America.