Outsider Looking In: Sociando-Mallet 1982-2015

BY NEAL MARTIN | MARCH 6, 2019

Bordeaux is built around an immutable hierarchy set in stone in 1855. As the ink dried on the classification, I suspect nobody believed it would still shape the region into the 21st century and beyond – and arguably more so now than ever before. Whether you agree with the classification or not, it inevitably creates winners and losers. Properties with exceptional terroir that underperformed at the time of assessment (the decade before 1855) pay the price in perpetuity. There are mundane reasons for exclusion. A négociant once told me that had Sociando-Mallet been located less north and, let’s say, closer to Calon-Ségur, then doubtless it would have been classified, given its enviable gravel soils and proximity to the Gironde. Unfortunately, Sociando-Mallet lay beyond the geographic purview of those assigned to gather data, and over subsequent decades this injustice left the estate reeling, to the point where it started crumbling into oblivion. Thankfully, one man saw its potential and single-handedly drove the regeneration that led to its current status as potentially the best non-classified growth on the Left Bank. I had not visited for several years, so I arranged to reacquaint myself with Sociando-Mallet and discover how vintages over the last four decades have matured.

History

The history of Sociando-Mallet can be traced back to March 17, 1633, the date of a document referring to Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, a propitious terre noble that belonged to a Basque nobleman named Sièvre Sociando. The estate passed through the hands of several owners until around 1850, when it was sold to a naval captain named Mallet. Hitherto the wine from this terre noble had been known as Lamothe, but Mallet renamed it Sociando and appended his family name. In the early 1870s, as recorded by the 1874 edition of Féret, Mallet’s widow sold the property to the Alaret family, who presided over the increasingly esteemed wine. The 1898 edition of Féret places it second behind Château Verdignan on their list of best Cru Bourgeois in Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne. At that time, the proprietor was Léon Simon, who had bought the estate in 1878. Production was still comparatively small, at 45 tonneaux per annum. During the 20th century, the estate had a succession of owners that included the négociant Delor; Louis Roulet, in the 1940s and 1950s; and a former mayor of Saint-Seurin.

The lack of continuity in ownership hindered long-term investment, and Sociando-Mallet began treading water. Quality went off the boil, and the château building began to fall into disrepair. The wines’ reputation was nothing like its halcyon days at the end of the 19th century, even though it was included in the inaugural Cru Bourgeois classification of 1932. The estate finally found itself under the proprietorship of the Téreygéol family. I have read that François Téreygéol bought the property, although I believe it would have been his father Emile. But that is all by the by, because the Téreygéols decided to focus on their other property, Pontoise-Cabarrus, and put Sociando-Mallet on the market. Both were in dire need of investment and the family could not finance both. In 1969 a buyer was found. His name was Jean Gautreau.

Gautreau, born in 1927, had been employed as a salesman for the négociant arm of the Miailhe family and was escorting a Belgian client around the northern Médoc when he chanced upon Sociando-Mallet. According to Clive Coates, writing in his Grand Vin tome, Gautreau bought the estate for 250,000 Francs because he admired the vista across the yawning Gironde estuary. Some say he initially saw it as a mere holiday home, and only after encouragement from Jean-Paul Gardère at Latour and Jean-Michel Cazes at Lynch-Bages did he realize its potential as something more. At that time he had no practical experience of winemaking. The vineyard had withered to just five hectares and the buildings were in ruinous condition, without a cellar to speak of. However, as Gardère and Cazes explained to its new owner, the estate occupied a propitious gravel croupe, basically an extension of Montrose to the south. So Gautreau spent years restoring Sociando-Mallet with the ultimate aim of creating a vin de garde. By 1982 he had reconstituted the vineyard and brought it up to 30 hectares, installed temperature-controlled stainless steel and concrete vats, and made the château inhabitable. Part of the reason he was able to finance the reconstruction of Sociando-Mallet was that he continued to run his own independent merchant, through which he distributed the wine. Gautreau constructed a large balcony overlooking the vineyard and the estuary over to Blaye and beyond, to admire the view that had sparked his interest.

Jean Gautreau as seen when I visited the property in 2006.