Jean Gautreau was born in April 1927 in Lesparre into a family who had nothing whatsoever to do with the wine industry. His father was an insurance agent. Jean was an accomplished athlete. He played football and tennis, even making it to the semi-finals of the Roland Garros Juniors competition at the age of 18.
He returned to Lesparre after his military service in Morocco and worked for the brokerage firm of Miailhe in 1948 at a time when business was very tough for the Bordeaux wine trade. Regularly in touch with leading merchants, Jean Gautreau, aged 21, clearly saw the enormous potential - especially in Africa - for sales of an inexpensive blend consisting of wine from the Gers department with deeply-coloured wines from the Northern Medoc. Taking advantage of this commercial opportunity, he decided to leave his job in 1950 to become an independent broker.
Jean Gautreau discovered Sociando-Mallet in the village of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne in 1969 when looking for a wine estate to buy on behalf of a Belgian client. It was love at first sight, despite the fact that the property was in a sorry state. However, the terroir was excellent and the domain afforded a magnificent view overlooking the Gironde Estuary. Jean Gautreau immediately decided to acquire it for himself for 250,000 French francs.
There were only 5 hectares of vines at the time. The buildings were in bad shape and there was no barrel cellar - just a small vat room and garage. With help and advice from Gerard Cler, a previous employee at the chateau, Jean Gautreau made an acceptable first vintage and a superb second one. He was helped by the fact that Sociando-Mallet's extraordinary terroir, consisting of Gunz gravel with clay subsoil, is propitious to growing excellent Cabernet Sauvignon and producing wines with wonderful freshness. Jean Gautreau expanded the vineyard year after year by buying vines from his neighbors. Seeking the best possible quality, he also renovated the estate's buildings, built a barrel cellar, and gradually improved the choice of grape varieties, matching the appropriate ones to each vineyard plot.
Today, the property is comprised of 83 hectares producing 450,000 bottles a year of Chateau Sociando-Mallet and the second wine, Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet. Jean Gautreau sold his negociant business in 2000 and now focuses entirely on managing his wine estate.
Seeing that the price of Bordeaux wine was heading inexorably upward, Jean Gautreau created his own negociant firm on 1st January 1957. He soon found customers in Belgium and the Netherlands and developed a flourishing trade in quality Bordeaux wines. He innovated by introducing the concept of mobile bottling units to provide chateau-bottled wines to his clients.
Chateau Sociando-Mallet is in the commune of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, ten kilometres north of Pauillac, in the Haut-Medoc appellation. A document dating from March 1633 refers to land here belonging to an aristocrat of Basque origin named Sociondo. A member of his family was Bishop of Bayonne. Another document, from 1750 mentions vines belonging to Demoiselle Anne de Sossiondo. Due to various misspellings over the years, 'Sossiondo' became 'Sociando'.
The archives show that Guillaume de Brochon, a royalist solicitor who lived in Sociando, was arrested during the French Revolution in 1793. His estate was impounded, sold at auction by the revolutionary government, and acquired by his father-in-law, Jean Lamothe.
In 1831, Marie-Elisabeth Alaret, Lamothe's niece and owner of Sociando, married Achille Mallet, a naval officer. As it was the custom at the time to add one's name to an estate, the chateau was thereafter known as Sociando-Mallet.
The Alaret family owned Sociando-Mallet until 1978, when it came into the hands of Leon Simon.
Between then and the arrival of Jean Gautreau, the chateau belonged to: the wine merchant firm of Delor, Louis Roullet (Mayor of Saint-Seurin), and then Emile Tereygeol, who also owned Pontoise-Cabarrus at that time.
On the eve of his 90th birthday, Jean Gautreau is passing on management to his daughter, Sylvie, born in 1967. She is the only child of Jean and Colette Gautreau?
Sociando-Mallet was Sylvie's playground as a child. She accompanied his father from a very early age and learnt to observe the vines closely and to watch the grapes ripen. Nowadays she takes part in the regular technical tastings and enjoys choosing the final blend with the team.
She lives and breathes Sociando-Mallet, her land, and exemplifies the spririt of the chateau. She is Sociando. Furthermore, Sylvie is gradually instilling this spirit in her son, Arthur.
Sociando-Mallet has throned on the Butte de Baleyron, one of the finest gravelly terroirs in the Medoc, since the 17th century. Situated in the commune of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, north of Pauillac, the vineyard overlooks the Gironde estuary on a blend in the river.
Sociando-Mallet's terroir consists of Gunz gravel over a deep layer of clay-limestone soil. This terroir perfectly regulates water supply and enables Cabernet Sauvignon to ripen extremely well and Merlot to acquire, freshness, and elegance
Primarily located east of the village of Saint-Seurin, the property stretches over a total of 120 hectares, of which 83 are under vine. The vines grow on the superb Baleyron gravelly hillock around the house and winery buildings. Sun exposure is optimum and breezes off the estuary keep the vines well aired and healthy. The huge mass of water in the estuary and nearby ocean accounts for a temperate microclimate without wild and swings in temperature.
Grape varieties consist of 42% Cabernet Sauvignon, 54% Merlot, and 4% Cabernet Franc. The vines are an average 35 years old. The average vine density is 8,333 vines per hectare. This corresponds to 1 metre between vine rows and a distance of 1.2 metres between plants within a row. This high density increases the surface of the leaf content of tannin, sugar, colour and aromas.
The soil is worked traditionally with earthing up and unearthing the vines. These operations aerate the topsoil. They take place in winter and summer with regular raking between vine rows. The vines are then pruned from December to March. As in most Medoc vineyards, the traditional Double Guyot used, leaving only 6-8 buds per vine to limit the yield. The vines are attached to stakes and the branches are bent and tied around guide wires. Dead vines are individually uprooted and young vines replanted in their place. Any damaged stakes and wires are also replaced at this time.
When the vines start to grow in early spring, the vine workers remove undesirable or non-fruit-bearing shoots that grow on the trunk and on the branches. This process, called Epamprage in French, is done by hand.
The vines are lifted and guided between the wires to steer growth. The foliage is trimmed on the top and the sides every two weeks. Spraying of protective treatments against disease or pests is kept to a strict minimum whilst preserving the quality of the crop.
The estate never do de-leafing at Sociando-Mallet. They feel that the vine needs a large foliar surface to produce enough sugar in the grapes, and also to protect the bunches from the sun's rays. Green harvesting is not done either, out of respect for Nature's gift and the fruit of the winegrowers' work. Yields are regulated exclusively by winter pruning.
The grape harvest lasts about 3 weeks. The order of picking depends on the grape variety, the age of the vines, and the specific plot. The entire vineyard is harvested by hand into small crates by a team of 120 pickers. The bunches arrive at the cellar in perfect condition.
Once brought to the cellar, the bunches are sorted by hand on a conveyor belt to eliminate matter other than grapes as well as any imperfect fruit. The grapes are then de-stemmed, gently crushed, and sent into the vats, making sure not to mix grape varieties or grapes from different plots.
This plot-by-plot selection means that each vat can be vinified in optimum conditions with a tailor-made process. Grapes from young vines or grown on a shallow layer of gravel produce La Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet, the estate's second wine. Grapes from the finest terroirs produce the grand vin, and grapes from some other plots must wait until the first tastings to know which cuvee they will go into.
Sociando-Mallet is vinified traditionally. Only native yeast and bacteria naturally present on the grapes and at the estate are used. Sociando-Mallet has stainless steel and concrete vats, both of which are temperature-controlled. Once the wine is put into vat, the crushed grapes start to ferment thanks to the presence of yeast. The skins and pips float to the surface and form a cap above the must. The vats are pumped over daily to extract colouring matter and aromas from this cap. Pumping over consists in spraying the cap with must taken from the bottom of the vat.
For the first 3 to 4 months, the barrels are kept with a glass bung on top. As the new oak absorbs a lot of wine at the beginning of ageing, the amount that evaporates is replaced twice a week in a process called topping up. After this period, they close the barrels with a wooden bung and store it 'bung on the side' to limit the evaporation and protect the wine from oxidation.
During the vinification at Sociando-Mallet, each vat is filled with grapes from well-defined plots. Depending on the year, a full crop represents about 20 vats' worth of wine. For many years, the estate has set aside three barrels of wine from each separate vat when the wine is run off to have a specific idea of the quality potential of each plot.
In 1995, the cellarmaster had the idea of selecting fifteen barrels from among these sixty to make a blend called 'Jean Gautrea'. The choice of barrels is made during a blind tasting after one year of barrel ageing. A committee consisting of the cellarmaster, the oenologist, Sylvie Gautreau, and Jean Gautreau evaluates wine from each barrel. The fifteen highest scoring barrels are blended and put into special bottles. These are brown and taller than the bottles used for Sociando-Mallet to avoid any risk of confusion between the two wines.
This was never designed to be what is called a 'garage wine' with extra-low yields and unusual winemaking techniques. 'Jean Gautreau' is simply another version, indeed another vision, of the Sociando-Mallet spirit, offering a different blend from the estate's main wine, the taste of a captured moment. It is not more concentrated, or better, or a luxury product, or a marketing gimmick. It is just another way of apprehending Sociando-Mallet.
The 'Jean Gautreau' has a higher proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon than Sociando-Mallet and is a somewhat austere wine in its youth, requiring longer ageing in the bottle to reach its full potential.
I have tasted the 1996 Cuvee Jean Gautreau and the wine has an intense nose showing great complexity of black fruit and cherry notes, plus a range of mineral, oak and spicy elements, easily associated with a good Bordeaux left-bank. Despite its age the wine is still refreshing and vibrant, with good acidity and tannin offering the structure on the palate, decent concentration of flavors and a fair length on the finish.
