By Ronald Rens, M. Sc., Wine Master, President of The Bordeaux Wine Experience

Green Wine from Saint Julien

Chateau Lagrange is the largest of all Grands Crus Classés. I have been following the improvements of this Third Growth from Saint Julien for over twenty years now. Vintages like 1986 and 1989 are fond memories now; fortunately I still have some bottles of the 1990 Lagrange in my cellar. You’ll understand we didn’t hesitate a minute when Charlotte Denjean invited us for lunch at the Chateau.
We started with a short tour of the winery. Things had changed a lot since the last time I was there. Many of the big fermenting tanks waited in the courtyard to be collected.

In the winery stood the brand new small stainless steel tanks which will be used to vinify parcels separately.
“This will permit us to work with much more precision”, as Bruno Eynard, the CEO of the property, would explain to us over lunch.
“Being the largest of the Classified Growths, Lagrange has a tradition of being open to the usage of technology”, he continued. With 157 hectares, of which there are 117 ((290 acres) under vine, you need technology to handle everything.
“Lagrange was always one of the first chateaux to use new technology” he said nodding in approval of the 2000 Les Fiefs de Lagrange, the excellent second wine of Lagrange. “Other chateaux sometimes look at us with some criticism, but later they all start using the same technology”. “We have a strong partnership with the INRA (The National Institute of Agricultural Research) since 1995″.
Eynard, who has been working at the chateau for over 25 years has seen a lot of change. “We are going to be as green as possible”. Lagrange is one of the first properties in Bordeaux to perform its Carbon Count assessment.

There is a large composting area to reduce green waste and to produce natural fertilizer. Another energy saving technique consists of performing the alcoholic and malolactic fermentations almost at the same time. This results in an electrical heating saving of around 8% of the estate’s total annual consumption.
Heating and cooling stations were replaced by heat pumps. On the roasted fillet of duck accompanied by the Lagrange 2002, Eynard explained the next step in high tech wine making. The grapes that come in the winery have to undergo a selection process. For this chateaux use selection tables with people selecting the grapes.

This is tedious and dull work where people will start making mistakes after a certain period of time. For the 2009 crop, Lagrange will start experimenting with a selection table where the selection is done automatically. A camera will determine the quality of each individual grape. The machine will then discard any grape that is less than perfect.
“Wine lovers shouldn’t be afraid of this use of technology. It is exactly the same as if it were done by people, but without the margin of error”, Eynard said with a smile, seeing the look on our faces.
I still don’t know whether he smiled at this idea or at the excellent Lagrange 1996 that accompanied the cheese selection…

You can subscribe to our Bordeaux Wine Newsletter here:  To see an online version of the latest edition, please click here