An encounter on the limestone plateau of Saint Émilion between fossils and Cabernet Franc. The story of Gérard Perse, the cyclist who bought a hill.
Our visit to Château Pavie begins with a very specific moment. At that moment, Jean Christophe, the winemaker, stops talking about wine and puts a stone in your hand.
It is a fragment of the limestone plateau, the famous calcaire à astéries. This rock looks like a Swiss cheese. It is completely hollow, alveolar, and crossed by millions of small galleries. These tunnels formed when there was a tropical sea here forty million years ago. Inside the holes, you can still see the shells and fossil starfish that give the rock its name. You hold it in your hand and it weighs nothing. This porous lightness is the innermost secret of Pavie.
Indeed, that hollow stone works like an intelligent sponge. It completely absorbs winter rainwater and retains it in its cavities. Subsequently, it releases it drop by drop to the vine when the summer becomes fierce. The Merlot and Cabernet Franc sink their roots into this geological Gruyère. Consequently, the plants cross torrid vintages like 2018 and 2022 without suffering the slightest water stress. They maintain freshness, acidity, and tension.
While elsewhere people constantly talk about a climate emergency, on the Saint Émilion plateau the ancient limestone continues to do what it has always done. It mediates constantly between the sky and the plant. The heat does not scare us, says Jean Christophe with the calm of someone who has geology on his side. The stone works for us.
The cyclist of the fruit stand: the story of Gérard Perse
However, wine never really talks exclusively about wine. It talks above all about the person who imagined it.
The story of Gérard Perse seems written by a French novelist from the second half of the twentieth century. He was a boy from the Parisian suburbs and a former cyclist of the real kind. Cyclists know well the fatigue of climbs and the strict discipline of dawn training. Perse began his career managing a small fruit and vegetable stand in Paris. From there, with the same stubbornness with which one climbs a hill, he built a mass distribution empire. He conquered a supermarket first and then an entire chain.
In 1993, the real turning point of his life arrived. He sold everything and bought Château Monbousquet in Saint Émilion. Subsequently, in 1998, he made the ultimate move. He purchased Château Pavie, the great south facing hill that the Romans already cultivated with vines. He invested radically from the very beginning. He drastically lowered yields, completely rebuilt the cellar, and imposed manic selections. Therefore, in 2012, the official consecration arrived with the title of Premier Grand Cru Classé A, the absolute pinnacle of the Saint Émilion classification.
As a cyclist, Perse knows well that climbs are won by maintaining a rhythm and not by sudden spurts. The black bottle of 2022 is silk screened in gold with the words Ma 25ème Vendange, Gérard Perse. This bottle represents the milestone of twenty five consecutive harvests on the same hill. It is the result of a quarter century of regular pedaling.
Tasting notes and reviews of Château Pavie wines
Arômes de Pavie 2018 (Saint Émilion Grand Cru)
This is a decidedly sunny vintage. Yet, the nose shows a surprising composure. It reveals notes of fresh plum, violet, and a touch of graphite that betrays the limestone. In the mouth, the sip is full but vertical. It shows a tannin that is already smooth and a savory, almost saline finish. It is the younger brother who does not suffer from any inferiority complex.
Arômes de Pavie 2019 (Saint Émilion Grand Cru)
This wine presents itself as more airy compared to 2018. In addition, the Cabernet Franc is felt with greater intensity. It expresses aromas of peony, blood orange, and white pepper. The texture is dense but agile, sustained by a luminous acidity. It is a vintage that beautifully tells the refreshing function of the plateau. Under the fruit, one always perceives the stone.
Château Pavie 2016 (1er Grand Cru Classé A)
This is a classic vintage. Furthermore, for many it represents the most complete version of the entire decade. It exhibits a deep nose of blackberry, sweet tobacco, incense, and that typical mineral signature of wet stone. In the mouth, it reveals itself as monumental but without any heaviness. The tannin resembles a Doric column and the finish is incredibly long. This wine has a potential of minimum thirty years ahead of it.
Château Pavie 2022 (Ma 25ème Vendange)
This is the vintage of extreme heat. Therefore, it represents the living proof of the thesis expressed by Jean Christophe. We do not perceive any cooking and no over ripening. The black fruit is perfectly intact. Hints of juniper, bitter cocoa, and a limestone freshness unite to keep everything in perfect balance. The wine is dense and spherical, yet it remains dynamic. If climate change represents the hardest climb, Pavie is climbing it in progression.
The market paradox: Pavie today is more accessible
In this moment, there is important news that few have the courage to say out loud. Buying Pavie today costs less compared to yesterday. The last two en primeur campaigns recorded significant price drops. The 2025 vintage, released in spring, travels around half the price of recent physical vintages like 2022 and 2023. The Bordeaux market is going through a correction phase. The négociants have full cellars. Consequently, the châteaux had to lower release prices after many years.
For the collector, this is a rare opportunity. Also, the 2025 vintage possesses a double symbolic value. It is the last vintage of the Gérard Perse era. In contrast to the past, and to close the circle on our hollow stone, it is the first Pavie in history with a majority of Cabernet Franc in the blend at 60%. This grape deeply loves limestone. It finally becomes the protagonist precisely in the vintage of the farewell.
It seems that Perse, on his last pedal stroke, wanted to deliver the hill to its deepest vocation. Leaving the tasting room, I think back to the hollow stone. A tropical sea that disappeared forty million years ago continues to quench the thirst of today’s vines. A boy who sold fruit in Paris understood, before many others, a great truth. Grand hills are not bought. They are earned, harvest after harvest.
