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Every year, the Saint-Emilion Wine Challenge honours 24 winners.
These men and women work day after day to produce wines that live up to the quality and environmental commitment of Saint-Emilion wines.
Find out more about these properties in Lussac Saint-Emilion, Puisseguin Saint-Emilion, Saint-Emilion and Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, as well as the Grands Crus Classés.
Today, Christophe Grenier, Technical Director for Domaines Antoine Moueix, introduces us to Château Capet-Guillier and its history.
To the south of Saint-Emilion, many properties bear the name ‘Capet’, as they belonged to the Capet seigneury in the 14th century. Among these properties, Château Capet-Guillier stands out from the crowd with its nomination as ‘Coup de Coeur’ for the Saint-Emilion Wine Challenge. Discover the secrets of this Saint-Emilion Grand Cru!
I’m the estate’s Technical Manager, so I’m in charge of viticulture, vinification and ageing. Château Capet-Guillier is a 15-hectare vineyard on the south side of Saint-Emilion, in the Saint-Emilion Grand Cru appellation.
Château Capet-Guillier is a wine that is both easy to understand and complex, with its truffle aromas, its modernity and its multitude of grape varieties.
This Château dates back to the 14th century. At the time, it belonged to the Capet seigneury, which owned all the properties on the southern slopes of Saint-Emilion. In 2009, Maison Antoine Moueix acquired the Château and renovated it, while preserving the traces of its past and in particular of the passage of the seigneury, which can be seen in the wine-making cellar. You can still see the bread oven, which was used by the inhabitants of the seigneury’s lands: they would go to Capet-Guillier to bake their bread, so that the seigneury could take a census of the number of inhabitants on its lands.
For the wines of Capet Guillier, the fermentation cellar is designed with very small vats that allow us to make parcel-by-parcel and intra-parcel wines using a gravity-fed harvest entry system and a punching-down method. The result is wines with a truffle aroma that comes from this clay-limestone terroir south of Saint-Emilion, and very fine tannins.
What’s unique about the estate is not only our permaculture plot, but also all the tests we carry out. For the last 2 years, we’ve been working on soil conservation and studying the impact of mechanisation on our soils.
The wines of Capet-Guillier can be drunk after 4 or 5 years and will offer young aromas, fresh fruit flavours and rather fine tannins. However, these wines can also be left to age for ten or fifteen years, depending on the vintage, when they will offer tertiary aromas such as truffles.
Capet-Guillier is a wine for special occasions, a wine that you need to take the time to taste and pair well with a dish. I wouldn’t say it’s an aperitif wine, but rather a wine for seasoned tasters. As a food and wine pairing, I’d recommend a good grilled rib of beef on vine shoots with a mushroom and truffle sauce, or as a dessert with something chocolaty.
The Saint-Emilion Wine Challenge is an opportunity for us that we find quite innovative. It’s not every day you get the chance to compete against fellow winemakers over several vintages. It’s also quite unique to be recognised by your peers, because the jury is made up of enlightened wine lovers as well as professionals and winemakers.
It’s obviously a source of pride to be one of the favourites. It’s a further recognition of the work carried out by our teams throughout the year.
Château Capet-Guillier is open all year round! You can visit us any day of the week, even without a reservation. Our doors are always open!
At the Saint-Emilion House of Wine or directly at the property!
