Chateau Palmer at Sparkling Stemware
Home • Login • Customer Service
Chateau Palmer is a winery in the Margaux appellation of the Bordeaux region of France but to a tourist, the word winery may not make any sense since the awe inspiring building looks something more like a Disneyland postcard. The wine produced here was classified as one of fourteen Troisièmes Crus (Third Growths) in the official Bordeaux Classification of 1855. The property is situated in the communes Margaux and Cantenac, and its wine is considered to be one of the two most consistent Third Growths, the other being the esteemed Chateau Margaux.
The Chateau itself, like most of the Bordeaux area, has a British heritage. In 1814 the property was sold to a retired English General, Charles Palmer. Previous to this purchase, the estate was called Château de Gascq. Throughout the 1800’s, the estate was owned by mortgage companies and bankers and had major problems with vine disease and economic downturns. World War I and the Depression years forced more sell offs and the future was questionable for this great estate. Today and throughout the last half of the 20th century, most of the great Bordeaux estates have stabilized due to quality winemaking and better business practices. The Sichel and Mahler-Besse families are the major shareholders. In fact, it was the soft-spoken Peter Sichel who championed the grandeur of the estate. He often scoffed at the trend for extremely extracted, full-bodied wines in Bordeaux and maintained Palmer's graceful style of wine. Today the estate produces 12,000 cases of the estates main label, Ch. Palmer but the one to look for in a poor man’s Bordeaux is their Second Label wine, Chateau Palmer Alter Ego. The estate wine fetches anywhere from $600 to $3000 depending on the vintage, making a solid Alter Ego vintage like 2005 look like a steal at $70. The combination of grape varieties (equal amounts of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon as well as 6% Petit Verdot) gives Château Palmer an extraordinarily complex bouquet of fruit, flowers, and spice as well as body and structure.
Best Current Vintages: 2005, 2000. 1990
0 Item(s) in Cart: $0.00