Pauillac
Maritime
The Médoc's most powerful commune: home to three First Growths and the archetype of long-lived, blackcurrant-and-cedar Cabernet Sauvignon.
Overview
About Pauillac
Pauillac is a river port on the Gironde in the northern Haut-Médoc, and it is the Médoc at its most concentrated. Three of the five First Growths of 1855 — Lafite Rothschild, Latour and Mouton Rothschild — are here, and 18 of its estates appear in the classification, more than in any other Médoc commune except Margaux.
Cabernet Sauvignon dominates the blends, alongside Merlot and smaller amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The wines are dense and structured, with blackcurrant, cedar and pencil-lead notes, and they typically need a decade or more to soften.
Pauillac is marked on the map.
France
Shaded: Gironde. Map units are states, provinces or départements, so a smaller place appears as the larger area that contains it.
The land
Climate & terroir
Climate
Maritime
Moderated by the Gironde and the Atlantic, with warm summers and a long autumn. Late-ripening Cabernet Sauvignon needs a dry September and October to reach full maturity.
Terroir & soils
What the vines grow in
Deep gravel banks of quartz pebbles over sand and clay, left by the Garonne. The best vineyards, including Latour and Lafite, sit on gravel mounds beside the estuary where drainage is fastest.
Go deeper
Rules, years & producers
Pauillac is a communal appellation, and its estates are ranked by the 1855 Classification, which is by château rather than by vineyard.
First Growths
Lafite Rothschild, Latour and Mouton Rothschild. Mouton was promoted from Second Growth in 1973, the only official promotion in the list's history.
Second Growths
Pichon Baron and Pichon Comtesse de Lalande.
Fourth and Fifth Growths
Including Duhart-Milon, Pontet-Canet and Lynch-Bages.
AOC Pauillac
Red wine only, from the Bordeaux red varieties; the appellation every château above shares.
What's grown here
Grapes
Each grape's page links back here.