Saint-Julien

Château Langoa Barton is a Saint-Julien estate classified a Third Growth in the 1855 classification, and it has belonged to the Barton family since 1821. The property covers 20 hectares planted on gravelly soils over a clay subsoil — an outcrop of Quaternary gravel the estate credits with bringing each vintage to full maturity.

The plots overlook the river, and the estate links that proximity, and the milder temperatures that come with it, to early ripening. Plantings are 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 11% Cabernet Franc, with vines averaging 37 years old. In the cellar the

fruit is de-stemmed and passed over a vibrating table and then an optical sorter before going into temperature-controlled wooden vats housed in a gravity vat-house built in 2021.

Fermentation generally runs a few days, with the juice pumped over the cap twice daily to draw out colour, tannin and aroma. After maceration the wine goes to French oak barrels for 18 months, 60% of them new and bought from several coopers, with the barrels kept topped up and racked every three months by the candle method.

Fining is done with egg whites — three to six per barrel, separated by hand — fourteen months into ageing, followed by a racking 45 days later. Blending is normally finished by the end of January, with consultant oenologist Eric Boissenot tasting alongside the family and technical director, and bottling happens at the château in June.