Ep 566: The Greats of Bordeaux – Pauillac

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 June 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Located the middle of the Médoc, 50 km/31 miles northwest of Bordeaux, Pauillac is home to 18 of the 61 châteaux classified 1855, just under a third of the list. There are three first growths, two second growths, one fourth growth, and twelve 5^th growths. The first growths are Château Latour, Château Lafite-Rothschild, and Château Mouton-Rothschild.

Pauillac is north of St-Julien and south of St-Estèphe with the manmade Landes Forest to the west, sheltering the vines from Atlantic winds.

The commune has 1,213 ha/3,000 acres of vines (7.5% of the Medoc) and makes about 7 million bottles a year. The AOC Pauillac is only for still red wines, famous for their balance of power and elegance that is rare in Cabernet Sauvignon-Merlot blends. These wines have strong aromas and flavors but with great acidity and tannin – the best are not overripe or overly tannic -- and are balanced.

In this show, I cover everything about Pauillac -- history, terroir, climate, sustainability, and then the top Châteaux. I break it down by terroir, location, and some details on top chateaux and then tell you to save your pennies to get these wines!

H ere is a link to the 1855 Classification

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Wine for Normal People, the podcast for people who like wine, but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:15.7	I'm your host Elizabeth Schneider, author of the Wine for Normal People book and certified wine dork.
0:21.3	This podcast is sponsored by Wine Access. Do you want in on futures of wines like I'm
0:26.9	about to mention? You can get great prices through Wine Access, big names like Latour and LaFeed,
0:32.5	which you'll know after the show. If that's too rich for your blood, don't worry. You can pick
0:36.2	out normal price bottles, too,
0:37.8	or better yet, let me make it easy for you by selecting your wines for you. Join my wine club
0:43.0	and let me pick out six amazing bottles for you quarterly for just $150.com.com to join. Listen
0:51.0	in the middle of the show for more details. Okay, I promised that each month I would be bringing you a different part of Bordeaux as part of the great series but with the Bordeaux focus.
1:05.0	And this week, it is Poliak.
1:08.5	We did Margot last time and I've done San Amalian. I will get to Pomerol and San Julien and
1:16.1	San Josef and a bunch of other places. But Poliak is considered the wine capital of Bordeaux or of the
1:25.4	Maydok on the left bank. And I'm going to explain why I think it'll
1:29.1	become pretty clear as I discuss it why this area is so important. But I do also have to tell you
1:35.3	that I've been fortunate to have wines from Paulyak and they live up to the hype. For real. People
1:41.4	say that they vary a lot and they do vary a little bit. I mean, again, just like the
1:45.2	wines of Margot, they're not all going to taste the same. There are some different areas of
1:49.9	poliak, but still, the wines are intense, and they're so freaking delicious. It really is worth
1:58.8	your time to listen to the show and to figure out which types of poliak you might like.
2:04.4	I know which types I like.
2:06.2	Now, I'm going to say I've only had one of the first growths, but it was really spectacular.
2:11.1	And I'm looking forward to some time in my life having more of them.
	...

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