Chateau Grand Pey Lescours

Château Grand Pey Lescours is a family-owned Saint-Émilion Grand Cru situated in Saint-Sulpice-de-Faleyrens, just south-west of the main village of Saint-Émilion. The property has been in the Escure family since 1924, when Frézal Escure acquired the estate and began developing the vineyard alongside his brother-in-law Aimé Luquot. Following the family's division of their interests in 1953, Grand Pey Lescours remained with Frézal and his wife Amélie, and the property subsequently passed through the family. Their daughter Françoise took over the management in 1999, representing the third generation of the Escure family to run the estate. The family's connection with Bordeaux wine extends beyond Grand Pey Lescours, with their portfolio also including Château Bellisle Mondotte on the limestone slopes of Saint-Laurent-des-Combes.

The estate covers around 25 hectares in one continuous block, which is relatively substantial for a Saint-Émilion Grand Cru. Its position near the Dordogne gives it a quite different character from the limestone plateau and steeper clay-limestone slopes found further east in the appellation. The vineyards sit on gravelly and sandy soils, with areas of iron-rich subsoil known locally as crasse de fer or alios. These free-draining soils are particularly well suited to Merlot, while the underlying materials help moderate the water supply to the vines. The vineyard is planted predominantly with Merlot and Cabernet Franc, the classic pairing for Saint-Émilion, with Merlot providing the wine's generous fruit and supple texture and Cabernet Franc contributing freshness, perfume and structure.

Grand Pey Lescours has increasingly placed environmental responsibility at the centre of its vineyard work. The estate has been farmed organically for around a decade and has also achieved Haute Valeur Environnementale certification. Interestingly, the family says that the vineyard had never relied on chemical weedkillers even before formal organic certification. Instead, the rows are naturally grassed or planted with cover crops such as oats, field peas and fava beans, helping to protect the soil and encourage biological activity. This is particularly useful on the estate's sandy and gravelly soils, where maintaining organic matter and managing water availability are important. The approach is deliberately practical, concentrating on keeping the vineyard healthy over the long term rather than chasing maximum yields.

The current vineyard composition is approximately 75 to 80% Merlot and 20 to 25% Cabernet Franc, depending on the source and parcel breakdown. Grapes are harvested by hand and vinification takes place in concrete tanks, with the wines then divided between tank and barrel for maturation. Around half of the production is aged in barrels, predominantly using barrels that have already held wine rather than relying entirely on new oak. This allows the fruit and the character of the gravelly Saint-Sulpice-de-Faleyrens soils to remain prominent. The estate produces around 130,000 bottles in an average year, although individual cuvées and vintages can be considerably smaller. The Prestige bottling is made from a selection of older vines and represents a more concentrated expression of the property.

The wines themselves sit firmly in the classic Saint-Émilion tradition, but the sandy-gravel terroir gives them a slightly different profile from the denser, more limestone-driven wines associated with the eastern side of the appellation. Merlot brings ripe plum, blackberry and cherry fruit, while Cabernet Franc adds violet, spice and a little more aromatic lift. Earlier vintages of Grand Pey Lescours have been noted for their combination of ripe fruit, freshness and firm but well-integrated tannins, while the Prestige cuvée tends towards greater concentration and structure. The use of mature barrels rather than overwhelming amounts of new oak helps keep the wines recognisably Bordeaux rather than turning the fruit into an exercise in oak flavour.

What makes Château Grand Pey Lescours interesting is its combination of scale, family ownership and an unusually distinctive position within Saint-Émilion. The estate isn't trying to make the most extracted or heavily polished version of Grand Cru Bordeaux. Instead, the emphasis is on healthy organically farmed vineyards, mature vines, the character of the sandy-gravel soils and traditional Bordeaux varieties. The result is a Saint-Émilion that offers the generosity expected from Merlot while retaining the freshness and structure provided by Cabernet Franc and the estate's particular terroir. It is also a good example of the less glamorous but very worthwhile side of Bordeaux, where long-established family properties continue to work large, coherent vineyard sites without the prices or international attention attached to the region's most famous names.