Château Angélus

Country of Origin:

France

Established:

1782

"The commitment for me is almost like a priestly vocation, which I take up with faith, passion and gratitude. We are only the guardians of a history that preceded us and will survive us, so our role is to sustain it in the best conditions we will be able to achieve.

We serve our family’s past, our present and most importantly the generations’ future, who will in turn become guardians of the history. It will be our responsibility to prepare them for these duties, so that they can do the best job possible, when the time comes."

About

A great terroir is more complex than you might think. It is not just the land, the earth, its natural capacity to drain away water and retain humidity – limestone or clay – the proportion of different elements in it that make it warm or cold soil, rich or poor ground, well-balanced or lacking. It is also the way it is exposed at the head of a valley, on a slope or at the foot of a hill, which creates little places that can be absolutely outstanding.

The vineyard at Angélus grows in a natural amphitheatre on a south-facing slope of Saint-Emilion and at its foot, where the summer temperatures are concentrated and where growth starts earlier. The soil is naturally drained by the slope. A good distribution of limestone and clay provides a regular supply of water and minerals. The 8- to 20% proportion of clay makes these areas of land warm and early. The vines’ rootstocks are ideally suited to this terroir and the vine varieties are distributed according to the soil types: Merlot on the hill, where there is more clay and Cabernet Franc on the sandy clay-limestone soils at the foot of the hill.