Château Cheval Blanc

Château Cheval Blanc is an iconic wine estate on the right bank of Bordeaux, located in Saint-Emilion close to the border with Pomerol. It produces extraordinarily long-lived and complex red Bordeaux that matches any of the other world-famous Bordeaux estates.

The estate comprises 39 hectares divided into 45 plots. These provide different characteristics and elements to the wines which are then blended into the Grand Vin, adding to the multilayered complexity and depth of the finished wine.

Although archives show that vines were grown at Cheval Blanc as far back as the 15th century, the wine was first sold under the name Cheval Blanc in 1852. In 1998, the estate was bought by Bernard Arnault and Baron Albert Frère. A new state-of-the art cellar designed by Christian de Portzamparc was inaugurated in June 2011. The futuristic building blends seamlessly into the landscape, sitting alongside the original historic Château.

The Estate comprises of three main soil types: fine textured with clay, more coarsely textured with gravel and large gravel with sand. The soils at Cheval Blanc share the best features of both neighbouring appellations — the gravelly soil that Saint-Emilion is famous for and the clay ‘crasse de fer’ soils that Pomerol is renowned for.

The Château’s vineyards are planted with 52% Cabernet Franc, 43% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon. Cheval Blanc is famous for the high proportion of Cabernet Franc, some of which dates from the 1920s. Cabernet Franc imparts complex and elegant aromatics, such as fragrant red and black fruits with hints of herbal and tobacco leaf nuances. On the palate, it brings smooth texture with vibrant acidity and freshness to the finish. The Merlot adds suppleness and plummy fruit characters.

The ethos in the vineyard is minimal intervention with limited use of fertilisers and no chemical herbicides. Grapes are harvested entirely by hand at Cheval Blanc and only picked when they have reached the exact desired degree of maturity. Pruning and green harvesting limit the crop to five or six bunches per vine so that the vines focus their energy on producing high-quality fruit. The harvest takes place according to the ripeness of each grape variety in each plot and the grapes from each plot are processed separately. The new cellar features 52 vats of varying sizes from 20 to 110 hectolitres, enabling the separate vinification of these various plots.

Cheval Blanc has produced some of the finest wines ever to come from Bordeaux, none more so than their 1947 vintage, which has become legendary and was described by Michael Broadbent MW as 'one of the greatest wines of all time'. Even today the ’47 remains one of the most highly sought-after and expensive reds in the world. This superlative wine was produced in a hot summer that resulted in rich and opulent wines, and Cheval Blanc 1947 has a sweet core of rich generous black and red cherry fruits that has evolved incredibly well over the many subsequent decades into an extraordinarily complex red.

Other outstanding vintages of Cheval Blanc to look out for include 1921, 1926, 1929, 1934, 1945, 1948, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1964, 1966, 1970, 1975, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020.