Château Sociando-Mallet produces full-bodied wines with a deep, dark colour. Their complex bouquet is usually dominated by black fruit aromas with a touch of minerality and well-integrated, elegant oak. Often somewhat "virile" when young, the wines gain in balance and complexity with age. They are fresh, straightforward, and have a wonderful length.

Château Sociando-Mallet has always been a wine with great ageing potential. A wine to be enjoyed even after 30 years in great vintages.

The Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet is produced from the younger vines of the property and the plots whose soil is more favourable to the production of very good Merlot. This grape variety represents half of the final blend of this wine. The vines for our Demoiselle cover around twenty hectares and receive the same care and are tended in the same way as the rest of the vineyard throughout the year.

The "demoiselle" is a sort of dragonfly found in the Médoc. Like the dragonfly, this wine of the same name is light and elegant.

The ageing of our Demoiselle de Sociando-Mallet is carried out mainly in vats, to preserve the freshness and fruitiness of the Merlot. This easy-drinking wine can be enjoyed young. It is an ideal match for grilled meat and fish or shellfish dishes.

During the vinification at Sociando-Mallet, each vat is filled with grapes from well-defined plots. Depending on the year, a full crop represents about 20 vats' worth of wine. For many years, we have set aside three barrels of wine from each separate vat when the wine is run off to have a specific idea of the quality potential of each plot.

In 1995, our cellarmaster had the idea of selecting fifteen barrels from among these sixty to make a blend called "Jean Gautreau". The choice of barrels is made during a blind tasting after one year of barrel ageing. A committee consisting of the cellarmaster, the oenologist, Sylvie Gautreau, and Jean Gautreau evaluates wine from each barrel. The fifteen highest scoring barrels are blended and put into special bottles. These are brown and taller than the bottles used for Sociando-Mallet to avoid any risk of confusion between the two wines.

This was never designed to be what is called a "garage wine" with extra-low yields and unusual winemaking techniques. "Jean Gautreau" is simply another version, indeed another vision, of the Sociando-Mallet spirit, offering a different blend from the estate's main wine, the taste of a captured moment. It is not more concentrated, or better, or a luxury product, or a marketing gimmick. It is just another way of apprehending Sociando-Mallet.