Château Talbot

Lost and yet won - the story of Château Talbot

From the plateau of Saint-Julien, Château Talbot can be seen in the distance amidst an ocean of vines, parks and tall trees. The winery has a rich history to tell. It owes its name to the Count  of Shrewsbury, Connétable Talbot. He was governor of Guyenne and a famous English general who was defeated in the Battle of Castillon in 1453.

in 1855, at the time of the classifications of Médoc and Graves ordered by Emperor Napoleon III, Château Talbot was promoted as the fourth classified cultivation of Saint-Julien. For several decades it belonged to the Marquis of Aux and was acquired by Désiré Cordier in 1918.

As the soils, so the wines

Château Talbot's terroir is ideally situated on the banks of the Gironde estuary on hills of alluvial gravel carried by the Dordogne from the Massif Central and the Garonne from the Pyrenees. The 110 hectares of the Château Talbot vineyard surround the estate and extend to the border of the Pauillac appellation. On a terroir consisting of fine Gunzian gravel with a core of fossil-rich limestone, one finds a large majority of red vines and a rather small acreage of white wines.

The management of the vineyards is one of the most impeccable in the Medoc. The wines, overseen by Nancy Bignon-Cordier with the invaluable advice of oenologist Eric Boissenot and consultant Stéphane Derenoncourt, are consistently rich and at the same time extremely elegant. The smooth taste and their silky tannins allow them to be drunk both young and after prolonged aging. With time, they develop a delicate, complex aromatic bouquet with notes of cedar and Havana tobacco.