Chateau La Fleur de Gay

Chateau La Fleur de Gay is owned by the Raynaud and Lebreton families. Chateau La Fleur de Gay made its official debut in 1982. However, the first true vintage for the wine was made the following year in 1983. The initial vintages contained a small portion of Cabernet Franc. That soon changed. They stopped blending in any Cabernet Franc and from that time forward, the wine was quickly made from only 100% old vine Merlot.

Rather than being an estate in its own right, La Fleur de Gay is consdered a sister-label of the La Croix de Gay site. The owners (the Raynaud-Lebreton family, who until 2011 also owned Château Faizeau in Montagne Saint-Émilion) view La Fleur de Gay as a "Grand Cru" wine and La Croix de Gay as a "Premier Cru".

La Fleur de Gay itself is composed of fruit grown on three, old-vine sites across the Pomerol appellation. These are dubbed La Fleur (a clay-dense site neighboring Château Lafleur and Pétrus), Gay (a more gravelly clay zone close to the Croix de Gay château building) and Groupey (another clay-gravel site just outside the hamlet of Catusseau, immediately south of Trotanoy and Le Pin).

The hand-harvested fruit is fermented in two concrete vats, and aged in new French barriques for 18 months before bottling. Only around 1000 cases of La Fleur de Gay are produced each year.