Petrus is neither the oldest estate in the appellation and nor was it mentioned on the inaugural Belleyme map of Pomerol, drawn in 1785. The first mention of the name, as a lieu-dit rather than as a property, came in 1750 when a transaction was made to purchase vineyard land at nearby Château Gazin. Prophetic, perhaps, as a few hundred years later, Gazin again sold land to Petrus. The name, however, dates to Roman times when a Roman by the name of Petrus owned the then-property. The label takes inspiration from his forebears and the Greek version of St. Peter, ‘Petros’.

By the mid to late 1800’s Petrus was renowned as the third best wine in Pomerol after Vieux Château Certan and Trotanoy. Phylloxera saw the vineyard replanted to Merlot and in 1878 Petrus became the first Pomerol estate to wine multiple gold medals at the World Expo, or Exposition Universelle, held in Paris. At this stage Petrus had shaken the firmament, wrestled hold of pole position and was selling for considerably more money than any other Pomerol and yet, its prices were only equal to the Médoc’s second growths.

By the early 1920’s Madame Loubat, a restaurateur at the finest restaurant on Bordeaux’s Right Bank, the Hotel Loubat, took the reins. She had begun strategically purchasing shares from a regular diner, then-owner Sabin-Douarre. By 1929 she had become the sole owner of Petrus. Her family knew the Bordeaux wine trade intimately, owning two small Pomerol properties, while her brother was the mayor of Libourne, a propitious connection to help facilitate her mercantile ambitions. Loubat set out to transcend Petrus’ local renown by travelling widely and bringing Petrus to the world. A force of nature, Loubat rose above the social constraints imposed on women, ruptured social and mercantile norms and set a path of discord for the likes of Madame Lily Bollinger to follow years later. Loubat presented Petrus to the then-princess Elizabeth for her wedding in 1947, the apogee of her dogged work.

By 1943 Loubat had appointed Jean-Pierre Moueix to distribute the wine. Their staunch belief in Petrus’ superlative quality saw them charge high prices, agreeing that they would never charge less than Cheval Blanc. By the time of Loubat’s death in 1961, Moueix was involved in all aspects of running the estate. The fulcrum moment portending to his expanding role was, perhaps, the destruction of two-thirds of Petrus’ vines by frost. Moueix and Loubat had obviated the crisis to a large extent by grafting fresh, young vines onto old rootstock, successfully maintaining poise and complexity in the ensuing wines. The vines were successfully regenerated and Moueix was entrenched as the chief engineer of Petrus’ future. He immediately appointed famed Professor Emile Peynaud as the overseer of winemaking, a relationship that lasted only a few years, albeit, one that left an indelible impression on the team.

By this stage Petrus’ ownership was divvied equally between Loubat’s niece Lily Lacoste and a cousin, Jean-Louis Robert Lignac. As a side note, his son Guy-Petrus Lignac remains embroiled to this day in a contentious debate as to why his father sold his shares to Jean-Pierre Moueix in 1964. In 1969 Lily Lacoste followed suit and sold her portion to the Moueix clan. That same year, Jean-Pierre Moueix arranged to purchase five-hectares of Gazin’s land to expand Petrus’ vineyards. With that, the modern era of Petrus began.

For obvious reasons Petrus is the jewel of the Moueix family’s extensive holdings throughout Bordeaux. These include La Fleur Petrus, Latour à Pomerol, Lagrange, Trotanoy, Hosanna, La Grave and Bel-Air Monange, giving an idea of the sheer largesse of the family’s influence before the additional negoçiant business is even taken into account.

In 1978 Jean-Pierre stepped back to allow his son Christian Moueix to steer the ship. By this time, Pomerol was not perceived as the bastion of quality that it is today. Lafleur’s wines, for example, were selling for about the same price as a fifth growth in the Médoc. Yet Petrus’ star shone brightly. It was by now the most expensive wine on the Right Bank. President Kennedy had declared himself a fan, helping Petrus gain traction in the United States where few wine-drinkers, other than niche collectors, even knew the wine. Then came the 1982 vintage and the entrance of Robert Parker.

Pomerol’s typical plushness and Petrus’ exuberance clearly befitted Parker’s tastes. His slavish devotion to not only Petrus, but to the Pomerol appellation in general, imbued confidence and belief among Pomerol owners and winemakers alike, serving as catalyst for an inexorable rise in wine quality throughout the region. Petrus was – as it remains – the flag bearer.

In 2018 20 per cent of Petrus shares were bought by American-Colombian financier and philanthropist, Alejandro Santo Domingo. The sale to ‘the Columbians’ created a seismic quake in the staid universe of Bordelais propriety. Yet as good friends of the Mouiex family, with a personal fortune of more than four-billion, there is little reason to think that Santo Domingo will impinge on the way things are done here. At the point of the sale the estate was valued at circa USD one-billion. Today it is worth considerably more, producing one of the few most expensive wines in the world (the others being Domaine de la Romanée Conti Romanée Conti, fellow Pomerol property le Pin and most recently, aged Henri Jayer wines sold on the secondary market).

Petrus’ average production is a mere 2,500 cases, meaning it is not sold on the Place de Bordeaux. It is distributed by Mouiex and a select group of negoçiants to a select number of markets only. Its pricing is largely dictated by its performance in the secondary market. While Petrus is far from the most prolific of Pomerol estates ‘it is the one that looms the largest in the collective imagination of the appellation – not just for wine-lovers, but also in terms of other producers’, opines Anson. It is curious, after all, just how many claim their proximity to Petrus as being a reason to believe in the putative quality of their wines!

Despite its diminutive slope, Petrus is the highest point of the Pomerol plateau. Its famous sticky clay, the same geological foundation incongruously found across the river at Château Latour, dates back 40 million years, slathering approximately 7.8 hectares of Petrus’ 12 separate parcels, to a total of 11.7 hectares. In contrast, the gravel of the nearby Plateau is but one-million years old. Merlot of course reigns supreme here, yet there are dollops of Cabernet Franc still planted, a vestige of a more prominent role as a blending agent until the 1960’s, when it took up circa 20 percent of the vineyard. Yet the wine is invariably straight Merlot. The nature of the clay is unique in the appellation, shot with vicissitudes of cobalt, azure and penetrating blue hues, with a remarkable capacity for expansion and water retention, without ever becoming waterlogged thanks to its sticky nature. It is known as smectite. Paradoxically, despite the notion that great wines are founded on deep, penetrative root systems, Petrus’ clay’s stickiness prevents such a dynamic. The roots are only one to two metres deep, growing sideways to eke out nutrients. And yet the very same clay, a reservoir of moisture and just the right quotient of nutrition, serves as a phalanx of power and intensity, delivering tannins that are at once high in polyphenols, as they are smooth and lubricated.

Yet winemaker Berrouet speaks of resisting the temptation to let things run amok, into excess, into the sort of jammy framework and excessive winemaking artifice that is anathema to high quality wine. Berrouet opines that ‘nature gives us so much here… our job is to simply express it without adding adornments of our own.’ He achieves this by de-stemming, optical sorting to cull the incoming fruit and fermenting, parcel-by-parcel, in 12 traditional concrete vats, ranging in size from 50 to 150 hectolitres. Pre-fermentation maceration is now but a couple of days whereas once, it was around two-weeks, attesting to the younger Berrouet’s deft touch. Pump-overs occur in the morning and again, late at night. Malolactic conversion takes place in vat. It is interesting to note that aside from a brief experimental period in the 1980’s, new oak has never been integral to the Petrus style. Abstemious barrel culling leads to a final blend. The rejected barrels are sold off, however there is no second wine per se. Sold off to where? That is among Bordeaux’s greatest secrets!

As at other top properties, a dramatic reduction in yields in recent times has improved the quality beyond its already redoubtable level. In the 1970’s, for example, yields were at 70 hectolitres per hectare. Today they are lucky to nudge 40! While it is almost redundant to speak of Petrus’ greatest years, with this in mind one could argue for more recent iterations including 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2005, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1995, 1990, 1989. The average age of the vines is around 40 years, with some dating back to 1952. Each hectare is replanted afresh after seven to nine-years, a rotational system that embellishes the right mix of younger and older material, propagated en situ since 1985.

So what else delivered Petrus to the qualitative zenith? Anson suggests that the simple, hedonic pleasures of the wine are responsible. It is, after all, like so many great wines, visceral, enjoyable and in a primordial sort of way, undeniably delicious for the neophyte and erudite wine collector alike, be it a young bottle or an aged one. And yes, Petrus ages prodigiously! Alcohols can be high in a relative sense, too, yet the geology and mesoclimate ensure that pH’s hover at a balanced 3.5 to 3.6, ensuring a skein of freshness and savouriness at all times.

So what to expect? A glass of Petrus is inevitably a melodramatic experience. There is so much going on that Anson suggests the ‘best thing to do is pull up a chair, relax and get comfortable.’ Bergamot, lilac, olive and rosemary are often at the fore, with the textural mechanics subsuming the importance of obvious primary fruit, let alone the effete notion of varietal typicity. After all, Merlot may be the conduit to a finished wine, yet it serves as the vector of place; of Petrus; of grandeur. As famed winemaker Denis Dubourdieu suggested before his premature passing, one should not look for Pomerol’s archetype in Petrus. Trotanoy owns that space. He proclaimed that Petrus is simply Petrus: inimitable, lavish and very easy to love.