Château La Grolet Côtes de Bourg cru bourgeois 1950

The Château La Grolet Côtes de Bourg Cru Bourgeois 1950 is a very rare testament to a long-gone era of Bordeaux winemaking. The estate itself looks back on an eventful history: it is an ancient manor house dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, which was rebuilt after the French Revolution and remodelled several times during the 19th century. The estate as it stands today, in the commune of Saint-Ciers-de-Canesse, comprises 38 hectares of vineyards situated on steep slopes with gravelly-clay soil and planted with the classic Bordeaux grape varieties Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Malbec.

The 1950 vintage was produced at a time when the estate was still run by the de Boüard de Laforest family, who had founded it in 1877. Wine-making at that time followed the traditional methods of the 19th century, long before the estate passed to the Hubert family in 1997 and converted to biodynamic farming from the year 2000 onwards. The Côtes de Bourg appellation, situated on the right bank of the Gironde and also known as the ‘Little Switzerland of the Gironde’ due to its hilly landscape , was known at the time for its powerful, long-lived red wines, which often contained a higher proportion of Merlot and were rather rustic in their youth, but gained finesse with age.

The designation ‘Cru Bourgeois’ is particularly interesting for this wine, as it originally hails from the Médoc, where it referred to estates that were not included in the famous 1855 classification. Although the term has also been used in the past by producers in other regions such as the Côtes de Bourg, it is unusual for an estate from this appellation and lends the bottle an additional historical touch. The 1950 vintage was, for Bordeaux as a whole, characterised by changeable weather conditions, which resulted in wines of varying quality – yet well-managed estates were certainly able to produce remarkable, expressive wines.

Specific tasting notes or detailed information on this particular vintage are now almost impossible to find, not least due to the rarity and age of the bottle. The Château La Grolet Côtes de Bourg Cru Bourgeois 1950 therefore remains a fascinating relic from a time when the wines of this region were still very much in the shadow of the more famous Médoc classifications, yet possessed their own distinctive character – a wine that today captivates, above all, collectors and connoisseurs of historic Bordeaux wines.