Chateau Micalet - Haut Médoc

Ecocert Organic Certified

Chateau Micalet is located in the small village of Cussac-fort-médoc, right next to saint Julien. The first cuvée of Chateau Micalet has been done in 1893 by Jean Péraud, who was the owner back at time. He was a baker, which allows the domain to now benefit of the title "Cru Artisan". He did only 10 barrels this year, and it was very well received by his clients and firends, so he started to do it every year. 

The estate represents 10 hectares, spread around the commune of Cussac in the AOC "Haut-Médoc". The plots are rather large (3-4 hectares) which allows the estate to avoid the impact of the treatments of the neighbours. The estate started the organic certification in 2004 with 3 hectares, and in 2007 the whole estate was certified organic. The soil is essentially gravel, which is uncommon for the Haut Médoc appellation. The reason is that the village benefits from the same type of soil as Saint Julien. When the AOCs decided their borders, the village of St Julien did not want Cussac to join the appellation, being a much less rich village. 

Families of crus were recognised in the 19th century to enable the classification of Bordeaux properties. The brokers who tasted the wines in the properties to propose them to the merchants, chose to distinguish the wines according to the social status of the owner. Thus, the peasants produced a cru paysan, the craftsmen, a cru artisan, the bourgeois, a cru bourgeois and finally the aristocracy and the great families of the crus classés. The social hierarchy and the price hierarchy were then confused. 
Today, these classifications do not establish a qualitative scale, but are more a reflection of the origin of the property. Blind tastings are enough to convince oneself of this. In economics, we tend to say that what is rare is expensive. However, when it comes to wine making, the crus artisans are rare wines, as they represent only 3% of the Medoc wine production and yet they are accessible to the greatest number of gourmets.