Lascombes 1963

The vineyard is situated in the northwest of the appellation, neighboring châteaux Labégorce, Perrière and La Gurgue. It covers 112 hectares (275 acres) in Margaux with a parcel of 6 ha (15 acres) in the Haut-Médoc appellation. The vineyard has three distinct parts of roughly equal size; a gravelly mound on which Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot are planted, a clay-gravel area of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, and clay-limestone plots better suited to Merlot. Unusually for Margaux, Merlot accounts for around 50 percent of plantings with Cabernet Sauvignon playing second fiddle along with a small amount of Petit Verdot. Despite this, the grand vin tends to feature around 55 percent Cabernet Sauvignon.

The winery is built on four levels to allow the use of gravity flow systems. Wood and stainless steel vats of differing sizes allow the crop to be vinified plot by plot and variety by variety. Château Lascombes is aged for 18 to 20 months, using a barrel rotation system to keep the lees in suspension, giving the wine more texture without allowing extra air contact.

Around 300,000 bottles of Château Lascombes are produced per year, with around half as much of the second wine Chevalier de Lascombes, which is blended from batches of wine not selected for the top wine. Around 20,000 bottles of Haut-Médoc de Lascombes are produced from the vines outside of Margaux. In the 1980s and 1990s another second wine, Château Segonnes, was made from specific plots within the estate.