Chateau Montlandrie

Montlandrie was Denis Durantou's last acquisition and, he liked to suggest, his shrewdest: a limestone-slope vineyard in Castillon bought in 2009, when the appellation east of Saint-Émilion was still Bordeaux's best-kept secret. The logic was pure Durantou — the same clay-limestone that commands fortunes a few miles west, at a fraction of the land price, farmed with the rigor of L'Eglise-Clinet. Merlot leads with Cabernet Franc in support, and the wine delivers cool, chalky dark fruit with a structure that flatters five to twelve years of patience. His daughters Constance and Noëmie now steward it alongside La Chenade and Les Cruzelles. For drinkers, Montlandrie is the Right Bank's quality-to-price argument in a single bottle.