Château Suau is a French

vineyard A vineyard (; also ) is a plantation of grape-bearing vines, grown mainly for winemaking, but also raisins, table grapes and non-alcoholic grape juice. The science, practice and study of vineyard production is known as viticulture. Vineyards ...

located south of the village of

Capian Capian () is a commune in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. It is located southwest of Bordeaux on the Garonne river. The commune is in the middle of the Bordeaux wine appellation AOC Premieres Cotes de Bor ...

in the

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

area. It sits at the highest point of the

Cadillac The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed i ...

-côtes-de- Bordeaux appellation. Château Suau produces

organic wine Organic wine is wine made from grapes grown in accordance with the principles of organic farming, which excludes the use of artificial chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. The consumption of organic wine grew at a r ...

History

According to legends, Château Suau began as a hunting lodge in the 16th century . At the time, it belonged to

Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette (1554–1642), created Duke of Épernon, was a powerful member of the French nobility at the turn of the 17th century. He was deeply involved in plots and politics throughout his life. Life He was born at Ch ...

Duke of Épernon Duke of Épernon (french: Duc d'Épernon) was a noble title in the peerage of France granted to Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette by Henry III of France in 1581. It is named after Épernon. List of Dukes of Épernon, 1581—1736 Louis de Pa ...

. It was not until 1637 that it was restored and named in honor of the new owners: the Suau family. The estate was bought in 1687 by a wine merchant named Clement Popp of Bordeaux described as the Lord of Suau. At one point in its history the estate belonged to Franco-Columbus Fenwick,

U.S The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

consul in

Nantes Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...

. In 1857, the domain passed into the hands of Jean Guénant, Receiver general of the island

Réunion Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...

who, with the help of his son, had to fight the

phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of commercial grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belong to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs ...

epidemic of 1870, introducing the first vine grafts. The estate was sold and resold several times before being acquired in 1986 by the current owner: the Bonnet family.

Wine and grapes

Facing south-southeast, this

Entre-Deux-Mers Entre-Deux-Mers is a French region, well known as a Bordeaux wine growing region. The geographical area is situated between the rivers Garonne and Dordogne, and is bounded in the east by the border of the Gironde department and in the west by t ...

vineyard has a

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

consisting mainly of clay and gravel.
It is planted with

Merlot Merlot is a dark blue–colored wine grape variety, that is used as both a blending grape and for varietal wines. The name ''Merlot'' is thought to be a diminutive of ''merle'', the French name for the blackbird, probably a reference to the ...

51%,

Cabernet Sauvignon Cabernet Sauvignon () is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Australia and British Columbia, Canada to Lebanon' ...

28%,

Cabernet Franc Cabernet Franc is one of the major black grape varieties worldwide. It is principally grown for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux style, but can also be vinified alone, as in the Loire's Chinon. In addition to being us ...

4% and

Malbec Malbec () is a purple grape variety used in making red wine. The grapes tend to have an inky dark color and robust tannins, and are known as one of the six grapes allowed in the blend of red Bordeaux wine. In France, plantations of Malbec are n ...

3% grapes for the reds.

Sauvignon blanc is a green-skinned grape variety that originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French words ''sauvage'' ("wild") and ''blanc'' ("white") due to its early origins as an indigenous grape in ...

8%, Sauvignon gris 1% and

Sémillon Sémillon is a golden-skinned grape used to make dry and sweet white wines, mostly in France and Australia. Its thin skin and susceptibility to botrytis make it dominate the sweet wine region Sauternes AOC and Barsac AOC. History The Sémill ...

5% for the whites.
The planting density is 5000 plants / ha for white vines and 7000 vines / ha for red vines.
In 2008, the estate started progressively to convert into

organic farming Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...

. The conversion was completed in 2012 and since 2014, the entire production is organic wines. The first certified organic wine was the Château Maubert 2011 (Cadillac-

AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (; ; born October 13, 1989), also known by her initials AOC, is an American politician and activist. She has served as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district since 2019, as a member of th ...

- Côtes-de-Bordeaux). Each year, the estate produces a Château Suau Rouge AOC - Côte-de-Bordeaux -, a Château Rouge AOC - Côte Maubert Bordeaux-. As well as the Château Suau Bordeaux AOC - Bordeaux Blanc Sec- and the Château Suau Rosé. Château Suau, Red Artolie Cadillac AOC - Côtes-de-Bordeaux-, Château Suau Red Cadillac, AOC- Cadillac Côtes-de-Bordeaux- and Château Suau Sweet White Cadillac AOC, (

Dessert wine Dessert wines, sometimes called pudding wines in the United Kingdom, are sweet wines typically served with dessert. There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a meal ...

s), are produced only when the quality of the grapes is good enough to achieve these

cuvée ''Cuvée''Or Cuvee on some English-language labels. () is a French wine term that derives from ''cuve'', meaning vat or tank.J. Robinson (ed), ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'', Third Edition, p. 218, Oxford University Press 2006, winepros.com. ...

s. In 2013, Château Suau joined the first Bordeaux wines association for an

Environmental management system An environmental management system (EMS) is "a system and database which integrates procedures and processes for training of personnel, monitoring, summarizing, and reporting of specialized environmental performance information to internal and exte ...

(EMS) and is Ecovert and

ISO 14001 ISO 14000 is a family of standards related to environmental management that exists to help organizations (a) minimize how their operations (processes, etc.) negatively affect the environment (i.e. cause adverse changes to air, water, or land); (b ...

certified.

Bibliography

* GUILLON Edouard - ''Historic Castles and wine of the Gironde - Bordeaux'': Coderc, and Degréteau Poujol. 1866-1869, Vol 4, p. 393. * Manthe René, ''The Barony of Capian and the Priory of Artolée'' - historical and archaeological Notes - Bordeaux Archaeological Society 1892 - t XVII, p. 55 - 57 *

Cocks & Féret ''Cocks & Féret'' or simply ''Féret'', is the colloquial name of a Bordeaux wine directory originally created by Charles Cocks and Michel-Édouard Féret in 1846, which was published under the name ''Bordeaux, its Wines and the Claret Country'' ...

: . * Charles Cocks, Edouard Feret: ''Bordeaux et ses vins'', G. Masson, 1922, (9th edition), 1886,Google book
Charles Cocks, Edouard Feret, G. Masson, 1886
/ref> and 3rd edition,1874.

References

External links

Château Suau official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chateau Suau (Capian) Bordeaux wine producers Châteaux in Gironde Cultural heritage of France French wine AOCs Organic farming in France

History

Wine and grapes

Bibliography

See also

References

External links