Almost universally regarded now as the finest of the super-seconds, on many occasions this magnificent property outclasses the First Growths. Not surprisingly the wine carries a price to match this performance and has in a number of recent top vintages held up extraordinarily well on auction markets. This is also a fairly significant château, with 97 ha under vine. The high standards in place here ensure that a significant amount of the Grand Vin is declassified as Petit Léon de Léoville from the 2007 vintage. Clos du Marquis, which was considered as the second wine and regarded as one of the very best of the Médoc’s second labels in fact comes from its own separate vineyard. With a proportion of its fruit also going into Petit Léon de Léoville expect to see further gains with Clos du Marquis. The quality here at Léoville-la-Cases has been top-notch throughout the 2000s and 1990s – only 1992 and 91 saw some ground lost, and the wine was a testament to the trying conditions of those years. The Delon family also own POTENSAC in the Médoc and NENIN at Pomerol.
