2014 Château Cantemerle Haut-Medoc

Product Description

Few estates in Bordeaux can claim a history as long, or as colourful, as Château Cantemerle. Records trace the property back to the Middle Ages, and for more than three centuries, from 1579, it belonged to the Villeneuve family. Its most famous chapter came in 1855. When the celebrated Classification was first drawn up, Cantemerle was missing from the list. Undeterred, the redoubtable Baroness Caroline de Villeneuve, then aged 72, assembled a meticulous file proving the estate’s pedigree, and on 16 September 1855 Cantemerle was officially added as a Fifth Growth. Its name can still be seen on the original document, written in a different hand from the rest.

The estate later passed to the Dubos family, Bordeaux négociants, for almost a century. By the late 1970s it had fallen on hard times, with the château and cellars in disrepair and only a fraction of the historic vineyard still planted. Its renaissance began in 1981, when it was acquired by SMA BTP, a leading French mutual insurance group, which embarked on an ambitious programme of replanting and restoration. That commitment has accelerated since 2021 under the direction of Laure Canu, culminating in 2025 with the unveiling of a state-of-the-art gravity-flow vat room and an underground barrel cellar, designed with a strong environmental focus.

Cantemerle sits at the southern tip of the Médoc, near Margaux, within a magnificent 200-hectare estate where nearly half the land is preserved woodland, parkland and meadow. Its 98-hectare vineyard lies on deep siliceous gravels, carried down from the Pyrenees by the ancient Garonne, which force the vines to root deeply and reflect warmth back onto the ripening grapes. With vines averaging around 40 years old, Cabernet Sauvignon dominates at over 70% of plantings, joined by Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Guided by renowned consultant Éric Boissenot since 2005, the team vinifies each plot separately in more than a hundred small vats, favouring gentle “infusion” over extraction, before ageing the grand vin for twelve months in French oak, around a third of it new.

The result is a classic, beautifully balanced expression of the Haut-Médoc: fragrant, finely textured and elegant rather than heavy, with ripe dark fruit, cedar and a subtle spice, all carried by the structure and freshness of fine Cabernet Sauvignon. Long admired as one of Bordeaux’s most reliable classed growths, and one of its most approachable in style, Cantemerle combines historic pedigree with a thoroughly modern commitment to precision. With its new cellars now in full swing, the estate looks set for a very exciting future.