Château LA GRAVE FIGEAC

ESTATE HISTORY

The Château LA GRAVE FIGEAC is located at Saint-Émilion, at the border of the Saint-Émilion and Pomerol wine designations. Caroline and Laurent CLAUZEL are the owner since 1993 and their son joined them in 1996.

Two grape varieties are cultivated there : the Merlot (65%) and Cabernet Franc (35%) varieties. The average vines age is about 45 years and the vineyard is cultivated according to the principles of Organic Agriculture with the Ecocert certification since 2012.

TERROIR

The Saint-Emilion region was the site of a significant sedimentation during the Tertiary and the Quaternary. This sunken area received all the drained elements that had shaped the Saint-Emilion landscape. In the Lower Eocene, between -54 and -49 Mya, the area was a vast maritime plain which formed a delta to the south of Libourne : large sandy ridges formed there.

A few million years later, when the Eocene ends and gives way to the Oligocene, the environment changes in favor of a fluvio-lacustrine environment favorable to the molasses, clays, and limestones deposits with in particular, during the Stampian phase of the Oligocene (between -33 and -28 million years) a marine transgression at the origin of starfish limestone construction.

From the Quaternary, 3 million years ago, the valleys gradually widened with the formation of steep fluvial terraces on which the Saint-Emilion most prestigious castles vineyards are located.

The plots of Château LA GRAVE FIGEAC are spread over three different sectors :

• the Pavillon sector, which adjoins the Château Figeac parcels. The terroir consists of a substrate dating from the Lower Oligocene, composed of feldspathic sands, gravels and green sandy clays whose sedimentation took place in a fluvio-lake environment and which is covered with a layer of recent colluviums,
• the La Grave Figeac sector, near Cheval Blanc and La Conseillante. The substrate is composed of an upper fluvial terrace dating from the Quaternary and covered with a layer of sandy-clayey and gravelly colluviums whose sediments are in places cemented by iron oxides,
• the Chantecaille sector, located on the Pomerol borders where the Quaternary upper fluvial terrace is directly exposed, made up of feldspathic sands, gravel and ruby ​​pebbles with blond quartz and black flint, and which carries the most famous vineyards of Pomerol.

These different soils are particularly qualitative and suitable for the vineyards because they provide all the heat necessary for an optimal grapes ripening, they ensure a good rainwater drainage and they force the vines to deeply take root because of the soil poverty.