Château La Tour Carnet
Saint-Laurent-Médoc • France
Image: Geographer via Wikipedia, published under the licence Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (size and cropping adjusted)Château La Tour Carnet
Darrous
33112 Saint-Laurent-Médoc
France
Phone: +33 5 56733090
Internet: www.chateau-latourcarnet.fr
E‑mail: visite@latour-carnet.com
Château La Tour Carnet is one of the oldest wine estates in the Médoc. Its roots go back to the 12th century. The château owes its name to the knight Jean Carnet, who fortified the estate – then still called Château de Saint-Laurent – as a stronghold during the Wars of Religion in the 15th century. The medieval architecture, in particular the striking defence tower built in 1120, has been preserved to this day and gives the château a special flair.
La Tour Carnet was classified as a Quatrième Grand Cru in 1855. Since 1999, the estate has belonged to the entrepreneur and wine magnate Bernard Magrez, who made extensive investments and secured the services of oenologist Michel Rolland.
The vineyards of La Tour Carnet cover around 200 hectares (59 % Merlot, 37 % Cabernet Sauvignon, 3 % Petit Verdot, and 1 % Cabernet Franc). The soils consist mainly of gravel, clay and limestone. The average age of the vines is around 30 years. The yield level is less than 50 hectolitres per hectare. Vinification takes place in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks and in smaller fermentation tanks in order to vinify the individual vineyards separately. The wines mature for up to 18 months in French barriques. The second wine is named Les Pensées de La Tour Carnet.
Bernard Magrez relies on precision in the vineyard and cellar, including modern technologies such as drones, optical sorting and blockchain tracking.
The Wines at a Glance
2002 Château La Tour Carnet
Quatrième Grand Cru Classé
France
Bordeaux ↳ Haut-Médoc • Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC)
13.5 % vol alcohol
Symbols
| 🯅 | The rating of the wine is based on a single taster. The taster is named in the context of the rating. The tasting was either open or blind. In case of a blind tasting, it is explicitly labelled as such. |
| 🯅🯅 | The rating of the wine is based on two tasters. The tasters are named in the context of the rating. The tasting was carried out according to the four-eyes principle, in which both tasters agree on a joint rating. |
| 🯅🯅🯅 | The rating is based on a tasting by our jury and indicates the Mean value calculated by us from the individual ratings of the tasters. Our mean value is based on the median. |
| ⚖ | The wine was evaluated in a blind tasting. We have strict rules for blind tastings. The tasters do not receive any information that would allow them to identify the wines. The tasters are only given access to further information that goes beyond the subject matter if it is absolutely necessary for understanding the wines. |
| 🕓 | We only had limited time to taste the wine - typically during an open tasting event, such as a wine fair. It was therefore not possible to observe the development of the wine in the glass over a longer period of time. The informative value of our rating may therefore be limited under certain circumstances. |
| ⛬ | The wine was tasted as a barrel sample or before an official test number (Amtliche Prüfungsnummer or Staatliche Prüfnummer) was issued. We only accept samples of unfilled wines in exceptional cases, and then only if we can assume sufficient stability in the bottle for a period of at least three months. |
| ▲ | During our tasting, the wine showed conspicuous sensory characteristics. This does not necessarily have to be a wine fault. We categorise the quality and quantity of the abnormality and include it in the rating. Wine faults such as cork taint or an atypical ageing generally lead to a complete rejection. |
| Tastings that refer to the same bottle of a wine are visually summarised by a dotted line. |