Tertre Roteboeuf

For fans of voluptuous but elegant Bordeaux, the name ‘Mitjavile’ has a special kind of aura. Since the seventies, Francois Mitjavile has built a fanatic fanbase for his garagiste-quantity wines from his Right Bank estates Chateau Tertre Roteboeuf.

Since François Mitjavile took charge of Tertre Roteboeuf, it is always easy to remember that many things here are unique, including harvesting later, picking riper fruit and reducing the yields.

While most barrel-aging cellars are quite cool, but here, they purposely warm the cellars to as high as 20 degrees Celsius, which they believe this process adds more air, and in essence, also adds somewhat of an oxidized quality, at Tertre Roteboeuf, they think this allows for a longer, and more complex aging to take place in the bottle.

While they would easily be awarded Premier Cru Classe’ status, they prefer to remain unclassified. As the market sets the value and price, their decision has not hurt the wine as Tertre Roteboeuf remains one of the most expensive wines of the region.