Another color of Cos d’Estournel

When Cos d’Estournel Blanc was born in 2005, it was an entirely new direction for the estate.
Driven by Michel Reybier’s vision and masterfully carried out by Technical Director Dominique Arangoïts, it was an audacious undertaking, especially on the part of a classified growth estate in a region whose outstanding red wines have built the reputation of Bordeaux.

The first requirement was to find the right terroir, one that would prove as exceptional as the ambitions of the estate’s owner and its technical teams. And so it was that a terroir thirty kilometers north of Cos d’Estournel in the northernmost part of the Médoc along the shores of the widest portion of the Gironde Estuary was dedicated to the white wines of Cos d’Estournel.
It was a place swept by the salty breezes of the nearby Atlantic Ocean with a gravelly knoll and a significant presence of limestone, a terroir of extraordinary quality that would necessarily come to express itself in the wines produced from grapes grown there.

Works began with identification of soils and plots, and younger vines were grafted onto their more mature counterparts to respect and preserve the identity of the land and its established root systems.
Grape varieties were selected according to the specific characteristics of each plot, resulting in three-quarters of the vineyard planted in Sauvignon Blanc and the rest in Sémillon.
The estate’s white wine would be undertaken with the same level of exigency as required by Michel Reybier at Cos d’Estournel, despite the much smaller size of the vineyard, which covers only six and a half hectares.

At each step of the winemaking process, from winegrowing and harvest to pressing, fermentation, and aging, all essential to producing a fine white wine, the estate’s teams demonstrate unfailing precision, passion, vigilance, and selflessness.
Appointed cellar master in 2017, Angélique Vigouroux has helmed the crafting of Cos d’Estournel Blanc since her arrival at the estate in 2007. “Precision is one of the core values of Cos d’Estournel,” she emphasizes. “When I first joined the estate, Michel Reybier and Dominique Arangoïts instilled in me a desire to seek out the smallest of details. It is a fascinating journey, for every year we must revisit our methods to adapt to our terroir and the vintage.”

The estate’s teams take a most meticulous approach to the vines, the oldest of which are thirty-six years old and have reached their full potential for producing exceptional white wines that merit bearing the same name as the second growth estate’s red wines.

After fourteen years of experience growing and crafting white wines, it was decided in 2018 to incorporate more Sémillon in the blend of Cos d’Estournel Blanc to bring more structure and complexity, thus leaving highly qualitative Sauvignon Blanc to create a new wine.

With a blend composed in majority with these grapes, Pagodes de Cos Blanc was therefore added to the estate’s range in 2018, and the resulting wines are spectacular. Cos d’Estournel Blanc is a sophisticated, rich wine whose Semillon delivers structure that promises long years of cellaring, while Pagodes de Cos Blanc is delicate and full of flavor that makes it accessible when enjoyed young.