What is Petrus

 Château Pétrus is a winery in Pomerol, France. It produces the red wine Pétrus, one of the most prestigious and expensive wines in the world. It is a status symbol that is also sought after as an investment property. In terms of wine quality, however, the Pétrus is on a par with other, less famous and expensive top wines from Pomerol such as Château Lafleur or Château L'Evangile and is even surpassed by them in some vintages.

A stone figure of the Apostle Peter is the namesake of the small winery. Striking are the light blue window frames, which only the Château Pétrus shows in this area. At the beginning of 2000, the main building was completely renovated.

The vineyard area of the estate is only 11.5 ha, this is planted to 95% with Merlot and 5% with Cabernet Franc. The use of the grapes is decided after the harvest, in many vintages no Cabernet Franc flows, so that the Pétrus is a varietal Merlot and not a cuvée. In the 1950s, the share of Cabernet franc was still 30%. The vines are over 40 years old, the yield varies between 15 and 45 hl per ha. The wine is stored for 19 months in exclusively new barriques, it is not filtered, there is no second wine.

In years when critics give wines top marks, bottle prices can be over several thousand euros, even in worse years, a bottle rarely costs less than a few hundred euros. Only the wines of the Burgundy winery Domaine Romanée-Conti are occasionally even more expensive. In the region there are lesser-known neighboring estates such as La Conseillante and Lafleur, whose wines are often offered at a third of the price of Pétrus.

The estate is owned by Jean-Pierre Moueix, who owns other wineries in addition to Pétrus.

The annual production is only 25,000 to 30,000 bottles, which is why the wine is rare on the market because of the small production volume. In 2002, Mövenpick offered wines from Pétrus in Germany on a subscription basis, only when purchasing other wines worth at least 4,000 euros was a single bottle of Pétrus sold to the customer.

The vineyards are located in the so-called buttonhole of Pétrus. The plateau of Pomerol consists primarily of gravel, with a clay subsoil. Where Pétrus is located today was the highest elevation eroded by erosion. As a result, the gravel-sand layer here is just under one meter thick. This geological buttonhole covers 20 hectares, of which 11 hectares are in Pétrus. This is the reason for the special position of Pétrus among the Pomerol wines. The iron-rich clay layer gives the Pétrus its lush round fullness, which always dominates over the tannins and is responsible for the truffle-like aromas in old age.

The winery has existed since the end of the 18th century, when the Arnaud family planted the vineyards. Château Pétrus was by no means always the leading estate of Pomerol. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that Pétrus was considered number 3 in Pomerol behind Vieux Certan and Trotanoy. Wines from the estate won gold medals at the 1878 and 1898 World's Fairs. The great era began in 1925, when Madame Edmond Loubat began to buy up parts of Pétrus until she was the sole owner in 1945. It was the 1945 'wine of the century' that finally established Pétrus among the eight great Bordeaux red wines. After the death of Loubat in 1961, the heirs gradually sold to Moueix, who united the best 4.5 hectares of the neighboring Château Gazin with Pétrus and thus reached today's vineyards.

At the Pétrus winery, a selective, manual grape harvest is operated. A plot is not harvested at once, but several times, so that only ripe grapes are selected. This cost-intensive method is now also used by other producers who produce top wines. It is also practiced in the production of noble sweet wines such as Auslese, Beeren- and Trockenbeerenauslese in Germany and Austria as well as in Ausbruch, Sauternes and Tokaj.

In addition to such methods, Château Pétrus also uses unusual methods, in case of rain before the start of the harvest, a low-flying helicopter is used to dry the vines.

The quality standard means that in bad years not all grapes are used for their own products, but are sold to other winegrowers.

There are numerous counterfeits of Pétrus wine in circulation, especially in sought-after Pétrus vintages such as 1990, 1989, 1982, 1970, 1961 and 1974. Since the end of the 1990s, every bottle has been engraved by the manufacturer to testify to its authenticity.