Chateau Cos d'Estournel
I finally got to Cos d'Estournel a week after the 2008 primeurs finished. The new cellars had been the talk of the week (along with, but of course, the golf buggies at Mouton and a rumoured - but not witnessed by me - Nespresso room at Brane Cantenac), so I was excited to see them. It was quite an adventure getting into Cos at the time as the general landscaping of the gardens wasn't finished, and neither was the tourist entrace to the cellars. But the musuem was open for business, and after balancing precariously along wooden planks over mud to get to the cellars, they were every bit as impressive as I had heard.
Covering around 2,000 m2 of floor space, with 1000 m2 of passageways, it is clearly making quite a statement. Everything is gravity-fed, no use of pumps anywhere for the wines, with 72 stainless steel vats, 48 of them from 100-150 hectolitres big, and 12 that are from 19-60 hectolitres, but with two-floors in each, so effectively 24 small vats. All conical in shape, and double-lined for the thermoregulation no interior heating coils. For the vats that are on two floors, there are two 'chimneys' so you can vinify them both at the same time at different temperatures etc. Apparently this is the only vat-room in Bordeaux with this capacity. After the (manual, naturally) grape sorting, the grapes are frozen down to between -40 and -60 degrees, so they can have the stalks taken off without releasing any juice or damaging the grape skins. They then go onto another sorting table and into little stainless steel wagons, where they are wheeled off to the vats and gently poured in (still cold, so still intact).
But the really interesting bit is the pumping over (which is in fact delestage, or 'rack and return'). No pumps are used for this, and it is all done by gravity. To achieve this, the juice comes out of the vat into a little vat on wheels (the marc stays in the big vat), this is then trundled over to a glass elevator (there are four around the cellar) which goes up one floor, and the juice is trundled back over to the original vat and poured back in over the marc. This also happens at Chateau Lascombes, and also I believe at Chateau de Carles in Fronsac, but neither of the other properties have done it with quite conspicuous expenditure - although I'm sure the results in the wine are exactly the same.
Down one more level, and you're in the barrel cellar, that can store 2,000 barrels. An inner chamber that I wasn't granted access to contains barrels for the white wine, that is kept at a lower temperature throughout ageing. The barrels are all underground, and the whole cellar reaches 30 metres at the highest point, and goes 10 metres below ground at the lowest point.
At the wine tasting before the visit, director Guilluame Prats told me that they had made 78% first wine this year, compared to 55% first wine last year, and that he ascribes that (besides a better quality vintage) to the precision possible with the new winery. It has to be said that these are really fabulous wines. Both Cos and the second wine Pagoda da Cos are always top performers in any vintage (although they know it, and charge accordingly). Prats used to be owner of this estate, and although it is now owned by the Raybier family, he has stayed on as director and continues to be the figurehead for the property. They can be stubborn about pricing, without a doubt, but this is wonderful wine, and their white wine (Blanc de Cos d'Estournel) is for me the best white wine made in the region.
33180 St Estèphe
05 56 73 15 50