FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 10
Petrus 2016
Grown on a buttonhole of 40-million-year-old blue clay at the top of Pomerol, the 2016 Petrus came out of a drought summer saved by September rain and was scored a perfect 100 in the year the estate quietly sold a fifth of itself.
- Maker
- Petrus
- By price in wine
- 20 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- Petrus, Pomerol, on Bordeaux's Right Bank
- Vineyard
- About 11.4 hectares (28 acres) in 12 parcels at the top of the Pomerol plateau, about 40 meters up; one profile gives 11.5
- Soil
- Dark clay topsoil over dense blue smectite clay; the only Pomerol vineyard lying entirely on that clay
- Grape
- 100% Merlot; the last Cabernet Franc vines were pulled after the 2010 harvest
- Vintage
- 2016, harvest from September 28 to October 11 by one account
- Alcohol
- 14.5%
- Typical production
- About 30,000 bottles (roughly 2,500 cases) a year; no second wine is made
- Winemaker
- Olivier Berrouet, in charge since 2008
- Owners
- Jean-Francois Moueix and his family, with about 20% sold to Alejandro Santo Domingo
- Top score
- 100 points from The Wine Advocate, November 2018
A hill made of clay
Petrus sits on the highest point of the Pomerol plateau, at about 40 meters, near the appellation's eastern border with Saint-Emilion. Its vineyard covers about 11.4 hectares, or 28 acres, divided into 12 parcels. Pomerol has never had an official classification, yet Petrus is widely regarded as its outstanding wine and, with its neighbor Le Pin, ranks among the most expensive wines in the world.
What sets it apart is underground. The vineyard lies on a mound of about 20 hectares that locals call the Petrus buttonhole. A 60 to 80 centimeter layer of dark clay topsoil covers a subsoil of dense blue smectite clay that is at least 40 million years old, while the gravel on the surrounding plateau is about 1 million years old. Neighboring estates have patches of the blue clay; Petrus is the only one that sits entirely on it.
The clay is so hard that roots cannot get through it, so the vines spread sideways instead of down. When it absorbs water it swells and becomes impermeable, holding moisture the vines can draw on through a dry summer. Growers credit it with giving Petrus grapes some of the highest tannin levels in Bordeaux along with some of the softest texture.
The wine is all Merlot. In the 1950s and 1960s the vineyard was closer to 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc; from the 1990s about half a hectare of Cabernet Franc remained and was used only every third or fourth year. Those vines were uprooted after the 2010 harvest, so every vintage since 2011, including 2016, is pure Merlot.
Madame Loubat, the Moueix family and the Berrouets
The Arnaud family owned Petrus from the end of the 18th century, and the name first appears in records from 1837. In 1917 the Arnauds had to sell, and a shareholding company was formed. Around 1925 Madame Edmond Loubat, a widow who owned the Hotel Loubat in Libourne, began buying shares, and by 1945 she owned the whole estate, then only about 7 hectares.
In 1945 the Libourne merchant Jean-Pierre Moueix won exclusive rights to sell Petrus, and the wine writer David Peppercorn dates 'the great age of Petrus' from the end of the Second World War and that year's vintage. Madame Loubat insisted her wine deserved to be priced with the great growths. After the frost of 1956 killed two-thirds of her vines, she chose to cut the survivors back hard on their old rootstocks rather than replant, an untried method in the region that kept the vines' average age high.
After her death in 1961, the estate passed to a niece and nephew, with a share to Moueix. He bought the nephew's shares in 1964, the same year the 22-year-old oenologist Jean-Claude Berrouet came to Petrus. In 1969 Jean-Francois Moueix, the elder son, bought the remaining shares and about 5 hectares from neighboring Chateau Gazin, taking the vineyard from 7 to about 11.4 hectares.
Jean-Pierre Moueix died in 2003, and Jean-Francois Moueix and his children have owned Petrus since. Jean-Claude Berrouet retired in 2008 after 45 vintages and was succeeded by his son Olivier, then 33, who made the 2016. In 2014 the family changed how the wine was sold, offering it through a select group of merchants rather than only through the family firm.
2016: drought, then rain at the right time
The 2016 season in Pomerol began with worry. The winter was mild and extremely wet, with the wettest January since 1920, and the long, rainy spring brought heavy disease pressure. In June the clouds cleared and the weather turned warm in time for flowering.
July and August were almost completely dry. On the Right Bank the dry, moderate heat suited Merlot, and July in particular helped form thick but supple grape skins. Without the wet spring, the lack of rain would have caused drought damage. In mid-September heavy rains restarted ripening in parched vines; the Merlot berries swelled without splitting, and the rest of the month was cool and fine.
One account dates the Petrus harvest from September 28 to October 11, 2016, with the finished wine at 14.5% alcohol and a pH of 3.5. A barrel note from 2017 recorded a yield of 35 hectoliters per hectare. The wine was raised in barrels a little more than half new.
Critics placed it at the top of a celebrated vintage. In the Wine Advocate's November 2018 report on the 2016s in bottle, Lisa Perrotti-Brown gave it 100 points, one of nine wines in that issue to earn a perfect score. She described notes of kirsch, black plum, blueberry, red roses, Ceylon tea, violets and licorice over 'very firm, very grainy tannins' and a ferrous undercurrent, and ended with one word: 'Stunning.' James Suckling's barrel score was 99-100 and is listed as 100 in bottle; Decanter is reported at 99, Jeb Dunnuck at 99, Wine Spectator at 96 and Jancis Robinson at 19 out of 20. Vinous is reported at both 99 and 97-plus by different sources.
France in 2016
The grapes ripened through a hard year in France. The country hosted the UEFA Euro 2016 football championship from June 10 in ten cities. On July 14, Bastille Day, a truck drove into crowds on the seafront in Nice, killing at least 84 people, and twelve days later a priest was killed in a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.
Politics was shifting under the vintage too. In April Emmanuel Macron founded his En Marche! movement in Amiens and resigned as economy minister on August 30. In December President Francois Hollande announced he would not seek reelection.
Ownership, rarity and price
Petrus makes about 30,000 bottles in an average year, roughly 2,500 cases, and has no second wine: lots that do not make the cut are sold off as generic Pomerol. Average yields have fallen from close to 70 hectoliters per hectare in the 1970s to about 40 today.
The estate's ownership changed around this vintage. In September 2018 the Moueix family confirmed that about 20% of the capital had been sold to the Colombian-American billionaire Alejandro Santo Domingo. One longtime critic dates the sale to about 2016, reports a price of 200 million euros, and says it was kept quiet for up to two years; the sources do not agree on the exact date.
A single 750ml bottle of the 2016 sold at an online auction in the United States for $3,800 in March 2025. In October 2026 a retailer in New York listed a magnum at $16,900, and a wine investment firm quoted a 12-bottle case in bond at $43,840.
The numbers
- Vineyard
- About 11.4 ha (28 acres) in 12 parcels; one profile gives 11.5 ha
- Typical production
- About 30,000 bottles (roughly 2,500 cases) a year
- 2016 harvest
- September 28 to October 11, by one account
- 2016 yield
- 35 hl/ha, per one barrel note
- Alcohol
- 14.5%
- The Wine Advocate
- 100 (Lisa Perrotti-Brown, November 2018)
- James Suckling
- 99-100 from barrel; 100 as listed in bottle
- Jancis Robinson
- 19/20
Timeline
The name Petrus first appears in records; the Arnaud family owns the estate.
The Arnauds sell, and a shareholding company is formed to own Petrus.
Around this year Madame Edmond Loubat begins buying shares.
Madame Loubat becomes sole owner; Jean-Pierre Moueix gains exclusive selling rights.
Madame Loubat gives two magnums of the 1938 for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth.
Frost kills two-thirds of the vineyard; the vines are cut back rather than replanted.
Madame Loubat dies; the estate passes to a niece and nephew, with a share to Moueix.
Moueix buys the nephew's shares; Jean-Claude Berrouet joins Petrus.
Jean-Francois Moueix completes the purchase and adds about 5 hectares from Chateau Gazin.
Petrus begins propagating its own vine selections for replanting.
Jean-Pierre Moueix dies; Jean-Francois Moueix leads the estate.
Olivier Berrouet succeeds his father after 45 vintages.
The last Cabernet Franc vines are uprooted after the harvest.
Petrus begins selling through a select group of merchants.
The 2016 harvest begins, finishing October 11, by one account.
Critics taste the 2016 from barrel; one scores it 99-100.
The family confirms the sale of about 20% of Petrus to Alejandro Santo Domingo.
The Wine Advocate scores the bottled 2016 at 100 points.
A bottle of the 2016 sells at an online auction in the United States for $3,800.
The world in 2016
Bordeaux records its wettest January since 1920.
Emmanuel Macron founds En Marche! in Amiens.
France opens the UEFA Euro 2016 championship in ten cities.
A truck attack on Bastille Day in Nice kills at least 84 people.
French athletes begin competing at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Macron resigns as France's economy minister.
President Francois Hollande says he will not seek reelection.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Mar 2, 2025 | $3,800 | Sold at auctionLatest reported sale of a single 750ml bottle at an online wine auction in the United States. |
| Oct 2026 | $16,900 | Asking price, not a saleRetail listing for one magnum (1.5 liters) in New York. |
| Oct 2026 | $11,524 | Asking price, not a saleListed offer for three 750ml bottles in bond on a wine trading platform, fee included, transacted in pounds. |
A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.
By reference price, Petrus 2016 is number 20 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (10 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Petrus makes no second wine. Lots that are rejected from the blend are sold off as plain Pomerol, and where they end up is kept quiet.
- In 1947 Madame Loubat gave two magnums of Petrus 1938 to the Lord Mayor of London for the wedding of Princess Elizabeth.
- There is no Petrus from 1956, 1965 or 1991; the harvests were not good enough.
- In the mid-19th century the wine was considered a lunch claret, not fit for the dinner table.
- Twelve bottles of Petrus 2000 spent more than 400 days aboard the International Space Station from November 2019 to January 2021; one was later offered privately with an estimate of $1 million.
- Petrus's fame in the United States grew in the 1960s through Le Pavillon in New York, where, one writer recalled, it was served when Aristotle Onassis sat at a corner table.
- From time to time Petrus adopts a stuffed-animal mascot for a vintage, a collection the estate calls the Petrus zoo; a critic's yellow Labrador became the mascot of the 2015.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026