The label says no “château”, no cru, no classification. Just a name, Pétrus, the apostle with his key, and the origin: Pomerol. Nothing more is needed, because this is the most famous Merlot in the world. Pomerol never drew up a classification, and Pétrus never needed one.
The secret in the soil
The secret is in the soil. At the highest point of the Pomerol plateau, about 40 metres above sea level, sits a lens of blue clay the growers call the “boutonnière”, the buttonhole. This clay holds water and releases it slowly in dry summers, and it forces the Merlot into small, dense berries. About 11.5 hectares stand on it, virtually all Merlot since the last Cabernet Franc vines were given up. The result is a red that draws from a grape usually thought of as soft something velvety, deep and very long-lived.
To drop at the apéro
Twelve bottles of Pétrus 2000 circled the Earth for about 14 months, from 2019 to 2021, aboard the International Space Station; one of them was afterwards offered for about a million dollars.
A woman from Libourne
A woman made it famous. Madame Edmonde Loubat, a hotel owner in Libourne, bought the estate in stages from 1925 and behaved as if it were already a first growth; in 1947 she travelled to London for Princess Elizabeth’s wedding and made sure Pétrus was poured at the English court. The merchant Jean-Pierre Moueix took over distribution in 1945, became co-owner in 1964, and his family runs the estate to this day; his son Christian made the wine for four decades. In 2018 the family sold a 20 per cent stake to the Colombian-American investor Alejandro Santo Domingo.
The legends are called 1947, 1961, 1982 and 1989. Behind them lies a great deal of effort: the grapes are picked only in the afternoon once the dew has dried, Pétrus was one of the first estates to green-harvest in 1973, and in wet years helicopters have even been flown over the vines to dry them. In 2019 twelve bottles of the 2000 vintage went up to the International Space Station and circled the Earth for about 14 months; in 2021 a panel in Bordeaux compared them with bottles that had stayed on the ground and found subtle differences. One space bottle was afterwards offered for about a million dollars.
Merlot plays at home
For Swiss drinkers Pétrus is a reference with home advantage: Merlot has been Ticino’s grape since 1906. To see how far the variety can go, taste a mature Ticino Merlot from the Mendrisiotto next to a Pomerol from one of Pétrus’s neighbours. The clay is different, the grape the same.