Château La Gaffelière has announced that it has decided to leave the Saint-Émilion classification. That now makes it the fourth Premier Grand Cru Classé to withdraw from it.
The Malet-Roquefort family has owned the estate for over 300 years and released a statement which detailed the reasons for its departure. The château no longer recognises ‘the values in the criteria for evaluating the great terroirs and fine wines of Saint-Émilion as set out by the Classification Committee’.
The château cited the committee’s first report which it said ‘called into question the quality level of our terroir, which has been acclaimed and distinguished by the AOC authorities for more than 65 years’. The Malet-Roqueforts argue that the scoring system put in place for the tasting, ‘contradicts all the scores that Château La Gaffelière has obtained over many years from the greatest wine professionals’.
The classification is updated every 10 years and in 2012 it awarded Premier Grand Cru Classé A status to Châteaux Angélus, Ausone, Cheval Blanc and Pavie. Only Pavie currently remains. Angélus said that the classification had become a ‘vehicle for antagonism and instability’.
Châteaux Ausone and Cheval Blanc withdrew from the classification last year as they found that there had been ‘a profound change in its philosophy’ in 2012. They believe that there was now ‘too much of a focus on marketing drift such as the importance of product placement, how often an estate appears in media, including PR and in social media, along with wine tourism infrastructure’.
Defending the classification’s process, the Saint-Émilion wine council said that the new ranking system is ‘a formidable tool for challenge, innovation and modernity’.
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