Chateau Lascombes Margaux Bordeaux Wine

Chateau Lascombes Margaux Second Growth, Bordeaux wine producer profile, with wine tasting notes, wine ratings, a history of the property, information on wine making and terroir, along with wine tasting reviews. If you want to read about other important, Bordeaux Chateaux: Links to all Bordeaux Wine Producer Profiles

Chateau Lascombes was named after one of its previous owners how possessed the estate in the 17th century,Antoine, chevalier de Lascombes. Born in 1625, Lascombes inherited the estate from the Durfort de Duras family. The Durfort de Duras family was established in Margaux as they had their own eponymous estate, Chateau Durfort, which later became Durfort Vivens. Lascombes was passed on through inheritance by Jean-François and Anne de Lascombes. Jean-François de Lascombes was a councillor at the parlement of Bordeaux, king’s procureur at the Admiralty and a member of the Académie de Bordeaux. Lascombes remained the property of the Lascombes family for three generations. The estate was known as Domaine de Lascombes until 1860.
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Through numerous sales and inheritance issues, Lascombes passed through a myriad of owners, until 1926 when it became part of the Ginestet family holdings. At the time, they were the owners of Château Margaux. During the later stages of World War II, Lascombes was used by Allied forces as an army headquarters.

In 1952, Château Lascombes was purchased by a group of investors headed by Alexis Lichine. The group included David Rockefeller. Shortly before the sale of the Medoc property took place, Lichine also purchased another Margaux estate, Château Prieure Lichine.  In 1971 the company was taken over by the British brewing company Bass Charrington. This is brought the Lichine era in Bordeaux to an end.
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Following the acquisition by the Bass Group, Bordeaux winemaker René Vanatelle was brought on board. Vanatelle determined did that only 50 hectares of their planted acreage was able to produce wines of Second Growth quality. The lesser quality terroir was used to produce their second wine, Segonnes. In 1997, prior to his retirement, Vanatelle introduced a new second wine Chevalier de Lascombes.

Chateau Lascombes, Margaux Fete de La Fleur

In 2001, Lascombes was purchased for $67 million by US-based Colony Capital.   The new owners invested heavily in modernizing the Left Bank estate of Chateau Lascombes, which had been considered an under performer in relation to its classification. Colony Capitol offered the property for sale in 2007. The wine being made today is a major step up in quality from what the Chateau released in the early 90’s, 80’s and 70’s etc.

In 2008, it was reported that Lascombes had rented vineyards belonging to Château Martinens, a former Cru Bourgeois, which had 28 hectares (69 acres) of vineyards within AOC Margaux plus 25 hectares (62 acres) of Haut-Medoc AOC.  Classified growths are allowed to expand their vineyard holdings without losing their classification, but only with vineyards of the same appellation as their own, which makes it uncertain to which purpose the Haut-Medoc vineyards would be put.

The The large, 117 hectare vineyard of Chateau Lascombes is planted with 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot. On average, the vines are 35 years of age. The vine density of the vineyard varies from 8,000 to 10,000 vines per hectare. The terroir is gravel, clay and sand. Chateau Lascombes is vinified in a combination of wood and stainless steel vats. Over the past few years, the amount of new oak has been reduced. The wine is now being aged in 80% new French oak for 18 months. On average, the wines are aged in 80% new, French oak. There is a second wine, Chevalier de Lascombes. On average, the château annually produces 20,000 cases of Chateau Lascombes each year.
 

This is perhaps the most modern styled wine of Margaux today. It’s rich, fleshy, ripe, occasionally jammy and with too much much oak, when tasted young. With time, all those elements should come together and turn this into an outstanding Bordeaux wine. While some consumers feel the wines made at Lascombes are not what they are seeking in a wine, all they need to do is try any of the vintages before Colony Capitol invested in the estate.

July 9, 2011, Chateau Lascombes, Margaux sold for almost $300,000,000! The purchaser, La Mutuelle, “MACSF” (Mutuelle d assurance des services de sante francais) an insurance company is the largest insurer of health professionals like doctors, nurses and others working in France.

www.chateau-lascombes.com