Château Prieuré Lichine 4ème Grand Cru Classé 2004

Lot presentation

Château Prieuré Lichine 4ème Grand Cru Classé 2004

The wine

Not far from Château Margaux, Prieurié-Lichine has plots scattered over the communes of Cantenac, Arsac, Labarde, Soussans and Margaux. It is one of the most spread out domaines in the Médoc. Its terroir consists of gravelly soil and is planted with a high proportion of Merlot. The wines are generally fairly supple and have an excellent capacity to age.

The land belonging to the Priory in Cantenac, which was founded by the monks from Vertheuil Abbey in the Romanesque period, was used for mixed farming and livestock, with some plots devoted to the production of wines that were already recognized for their quality. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that the entire property was planted with vines. The Priory's wine was ranked at that time as a third growth by the Intendance de Bordeaux in the classification of the parishes of Margaux and Cantenac. After the French Revolution, the property was acquired by Monsieur Durand Delains, a Bordeaux wine merchant. Promoted to a fourth growth in the 1855 Classification, the property then underwent a series of crises with phylloxera and then the crash of 1929. When Alexis Lichine, known as the Wine Pope, purchased it in the early 1950s, the vineyard was in a pitiable state. He devoted himself to restoring the property until his death in 1989. Today, Château Prieuré Lichine is owned by the Ballande group, assisted by consultant oenologist Stéphane Derenoncourt.