Menu
- France
- Italy
- Argentina
- Australia
- Austria
- Chile
- Germany
- Hungary
- New Zealand
- Portugal
- South Africa
- Spain
- United Kingdom
- USA

Château Grand Village
"In 2002-2003 Baptiste, and subsequently his girlfriend, started working with us and with their assistance we have been able to concentrate much more on Grand Village. The wine is more refined now. We used to make good Bordeaux, now we’re making real Bordeaux." - Jacques Guinaudeau

"There is a fashion that the longer the maceration and the more mature the grapes, then the better the wine, that isn’t right for us. Its like tea, if you leave the water on the tea leaves for too long you get strong tea but without good fl avor. We think to make great wine they need to be mature grapes, but not over mature. We’re trying to make a wine for drinking fairly young, not to make blockbusters, and the quality is increasing year by year. The white sees no wood, its basis is fruit and you can really taste the fruit in it."

History
The Guinaudeau family has owned and lived in
The area
One of the great ironies of
In some ways, this should not surprise us. After all, the most famous wines have become iconic brands, where image is everything and nothing can be left to chance. How unsightly it would be to arrive at Latour and have to knock on a door rather than be greeted by a remotely operated bollard that pops out of the road as you approach, as is the case now! For the real

The Estate and its owners
In Mouillac, on the outskirts of Fronsac, set deep back from the right bank of the
This is no general manager parachuted in and driving home to a house in the suburbs! Such deeply rooted personal attachment certainly goes some way to explaining the fanatical care and attention that the family places upon its wines, elevating them far above the humble Bordeaux Supérieur appellation to which they are entitled.
It also goes some way to explaining the warmth of the welcome – no golf cart to whisk you off to the tasting room here as at Mouton Rothschild, but rather a hearth rug, a roaring fire and books on the reading table, open at the last page rather than displayed to impress on the coffee table.

The Wines
Grand
The red is usually a blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot. There is only a very small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon planted here as the soil, as in Pomerol, is rich in clay. The blend is usually 60% Cabernet Franc and 40% Merlot and aged in barriques for 12 to 1 months, with only a small proportion of new wood, never more than 20%. The result is a supple and harmonious claret with deceptive levels of concentration and definition and it generally drinks well from three to ten years after harvest. There are exceptions though – the 1990, tasted last autumn, was a revelation for a 17 year-old!
We adore these wines and think that they offer some of the best value to be found in