Pascal Sirat and his son
When Pascal Sirat took over at Château Panchille in 1981, he was able to save only five of the more than twenty hectares his father had farmed - and then lost - in a succession of unhappy personal and financial disasters. But by 1994, Pascal had increased the size of the domaine to twelve hectares, quit the regional cooperative where three previous generations of Sirats had always taken their grapes, and released his first vintage of estate-bottled Château Panchille. The vineyards slope down nearly to the bank of the Dordogne, a few kilometers southeast of Libourne, where the clay limestone over deep gravel is a continuation of the soils of nearby Saint Emilion and Fronsac: best suited to growing fine, expressive Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
