Saint-Émilion

Small game birds, red meats, lamb, soft cheese.

The estate is located on the Saint-Emilion limestone plateau, approximately 85 meters above the Dordogne River. The soil is largely clay-limestone with an asteriated limestone subsoil.

Malolactic fermentation in barrel. Pavie-Decesse is fermented in new oak barrels for 18 to 24 months with racking every 3 months. Final blending takes place just before bottling, without fining or filtering.

Pavie-Decesse is fermented in 3 wooden temperature-controlled vats to keep different lots of wine separate in order to fine tune the final blend. The wine stays on the skins for 3 weeks.

Chateau Pavie Decesse belongs to Gerard Perse a man whose dogmatic pursuit of modern style Bordeaux wine borrowing techniques advocated by the garagiste estates but on a larger scale having entered the region in 1993 when he acquired Chateau Monbousquet. Although Chateau Pavie remains his flagship estate Chateau Pavie Decesse was actually purchased one year earlier in 1997 in some ways a stepping-stone towards his consequent acquisition. Although in some ways Pavie Decesse is overshadowed by the more illustrious Chateau Pavie this is a wonderful estate and many prefer it to Perse's jewel in the crown. Pavie Decesse is a much smaller vineyard than its grander sibling Chateau Pavie with just 9.1 hectares of vines perched further up on the crest of the slope on a chalky/limestone soil. Unlike Pavie the wine is more of a Monocepage with 90% of the vines being Merlot the remaining 10% Cabernet Franc. The vines are a respectable 43 years old on average. A similar draconian level of green harvesting is practice at Pavie Decesse as at Pavie with vines pruned down to six buds. The grapes are picked by hand sorted and then fermented in nine temperature-controlled wooden vats for three weeks. Approximately 2 000 cases are produced per annum with no second label.