Léoville-Poyferré 1936-2018
BY NEAL MARTIN |
I have
never quite understood graffiti. Instead of admiring the creativity of youthful
rebellion and artistry, I wonder how a teenage tearaway scaled a train bridge
in the pitch black of night, risked life and limb dangling over a ledge to daub
their name so that commuters see it for perpetuity and beyond. How can they
even see what they’re doing? Nowadays, Banksy and his enigmatic colleagues have
elevated graffiti to high culture, taking it from the streets to the auction
room with prices approaching Burgundy Grand Cru levels. As yet, I have not seen
any of Banksy’s trademark stencils inside the tasting room at Léoville-Poyferré,
whose walls have been graffitied by who’s who of the wine world. Maybe he’s
just waiting for the right moment to sneak in at night with his stencils?
Last summer, during my extended stay in Bordeaux, when conducting verticals on a daily basis and accumulating a backlog that will take until the next century to write up (honestly, I’m trying), I dropped in at Léoville-Poyferré to taste the last two decades of wines with proprietor Sara Lecompte Cuvelier and head winemaker Isabelle Devin. It was an insightful tasting that demonstrated the direction that the estate has followed in recent years. Léoville-Poyferré, like most properties in Bordeaux, has endured its highs and lows over the years, but few would argue that it has really hit its stride over the last four decades.
History
Like many Bordeaux Left Bank estates, the site of Léoville-Poyferré was once occupied by an ancient fort to protect France from marauders invading down the estuary. It was part of the maison noble of “La Rase” that adopted the name Montmoytié upon its acquisition by seigneur Moytié in 1610. The first vines were planted in 1638, and the reputation of its wines began to rise as early as the second half of the century, when much of the Médoc was still marshland.
At the beginning of the 18th century, two Moytié daughters were betrothed to members of powerful parliamentarian dynasties: Louise de Moytié marrying Jean-Pierre d’Abbadie in 1714 and Jeanne de Moytié the blushing bride to Blaise Antoine Alexandre de Gascq in 1722. The following year, their father Jean de Moytié, passed away, and the 120-hectare estate transferred into the hands of influential and ambitious owners. They renamed it Léoville. Classifications prior to 1855 ranked its wines amongst the first tier of Saint-Julien. Blaise Antoine Alexandre de Gascq died in 1753, upon which his widow continued to manage the vast estate, some 500 hectares including pastures and woodland. There were no direct heirs, and when Jeanne de Moytié died in 1766, the property passed to her sister’s four children: Anne-Jeanne, Jean-Pierre, Jean-Joseph and Bernard d’Abbadie.
Jean-Joseph d’Abbadie ran the estate up until 1794 alongside his nephew and niece, Pierre-Jean and Jeanne de Las Cases. Fleeing upon the French Revolution, one-quarter was sold off as a bien nationale to Lechevalier and the seigneur Monbalon, which ultimately begat Léoville-Barton, whilst the remainder carried on under the ownership of Bernard d’Abbadie and Jeanne de Las Cases. D’Abbadie died in 1805, whereupon Jeanne de Las Cases not only continued to oversee the estate but expanded holdings with the acquisition of Cadillon four years later. There are now four owners of the original Léoville estate (Las Cases, Chevalier, Monbalon and d’Abaddie) though most unofficial rankings during the first half of the 19th century referred to a single marque - Léoville. In 1830, Jeanne de Las Cases died. Her domaine was split between her two daughters, Jeanne-Marie Sophie, the wife of Baron Jean-Marie de Poyferré de Cére, and her younger sibling Rose Raymonde, married to Gabriel André de Bonneval. Existing records show that there was a cooperage, a butcher and cattle as well as vines, a winery with 10 wooden vats and around 220 barrels housed in one large and one smaller barrel cellar, a third dedicated to slightly older vintages, which included white wine, as was common in those days. In 1836, Jean-Marie de Poyferré de Cére bought out his sister-in-law’s share and appended his name to the wine. So Léoville-Poyferré was born. His spouse passed away two years later, and thereafter, de Cère dedicated himself to taking the estate to the highest level, predicating its ranking not just as a Second Growth in 1855, but third within that tier.
