Pavie takes its name from the peaches once grown on this south-facing slope, and the vineyard climbs the limestone côte on the edge of the town of Saint-Émilion itself. In 1976 it belonged to the Valette family, who held it for most of the twentieth century and made a cool, restrained wine quite unlike the powerful style the estate became known for after it changed hands in 1998.
The growing season was extreme: a drought summer of record heat across France, then September rain. On the Right Bank, where Merlot ripens early, a good deal of fruit came in before the worst of it, and the wines are round and forward rather than long-lived.
A bottle of Valette-era Pavie is now a small piece of Saint-Émilion history — the wine as it was made before the estate was bought, rebuilt and eventually promoted to the top rank of the classification.
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Producer: Château Pavie
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Vintage: 1976
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Appellation: Saint-Émilion AOC
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Format: 75cl
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Region: Bordeaux, France
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Style: Red
Where it is likely to be now. A soft, early-maturing vintage now fifty years old, so expect a gentle, tertiary wine at best; it is offered as a collector's bottle without a promise of how it will drink.
Who it suits. A fiftieth-birthday bottle for someone born in 1976, and a good one for a wine drinker who already knows the modern Pavie and would enjoy the contrast.
Condition. Graded good by the merchant, covering label, capsule and fill together — ordinary traces of a long cellar life, nothing suggesting the bottle has been disturbed.
Provenance. Bought to order from a professional European merchant. We check fill, label and capsule when the bottle reaches us and photograph it before it ships.
Delivered in 7 to 10 working days, tracked. Transit cover can be added at checkout.
Sold as a collectible item, as seen. No guarantee is given on drinkability.
