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Discover the Château d’Argan


Coming from the same estate, but from specific parcels, Château d’Argan is a Cru Bourgeois du Médoc appellation wine and Château Hauterive is a wine from the Médoc appellation. Their profiles are different.


Saint-Germain-D’Esteuil

The history of Château d’Argan

Château d’Argan, which dominates the township of Saint-Germain-d’Esteuil, offers the most romantic exceptional sunrise on the Reysson swamp.

The main building used nowadays as the winery, was once a port before the draining of the wetland. 

Indeed, the Medoc was entirely composed of islands, without roads, where the rides were made by small boats.

Besides, some visitors still come to seek some coins from the Gallo-Roman period, because of the proximity to the archeological location of Brion.

Claimed in Medoc appellation, the Château was integrated to the official classification “Crus Bourgeois du Médoc” in 1932.

The name of this distinction came from the bourgeois who were the inhabitants of the “village” of Bordeaux and who became the owners of the best lands of the region. The name of “Cru des Bourgeois” was given, then “Cru Bourgeois”. The classification corresponds to the history of the Château which was bought by the Verthamont family during this virtuous period, in the middle of the 18th century.

Since 2009, all the vintages of Château d’Argan have been recognized as Cru Bourgeois and certified HVE from the 2018 vintage.

Clay-limestone soil.

The vineyard

Surface area: 22 hectares
Planting density : 5000 vines/ha.
Grape variety: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot.
Double Guyot pruning, debudding and leaf stripping.
Supervised growing

Appellation

Médoc Cru Bourgeois

The terroir

The property benefits from a clay-limestone terroir on soft slope, which allows having a natural drainage of the parcels and a good water input of the vine even with a dry weather, like it was for the vintage 2016.

It’s this particular terroir which allows to the grapes to have a complete maturity and to the wines to reach a great richness of aromas and tannins.

To this day, the production site is composed of 61 hectares in the Medoc appellation. Only Château D’Argan is classified Cru Bourgeois since 2009. The volume of wine dedicated to Château D’Argan comes from parcels of 22 hectares, on the property, which is in total around 58 hectares currently. 

The average age of the vineyard is 40 years and shows a high proportion of old vines pruned with caution. The goal is to preserve their aptitudes to produce grapes with small yield, rich in aromas in order to obtain a unique aromatic complexity in the wines. 

The vine cultivation is supervised at each step of the production to preserve and optimize at the maximum the quality of the fruit. The pruning is supervised at each vine plant to sustain them at best, thus we conserved parcels of more than 50 years.

The debuddings are realized in a meticulous manner with two successive passages to reduce the proportion of the vegetative mass around the grapes and then limit the humidity around the clusters. In the same vein, we realize a leaf stripping in order to avoid as well the expansion of the botrytis (grey rot) around the clusters that could affect the aromas and the color of the wines.

A work of restructuration is ongoing in the vineyard in order to sustain it in the time. We replant between 5 and 6 hectares per year choosing rootstocks and grape varieties adapted to our high quality wine production. We focus on the plantation of vines with small berries and loose clusters in order to obtain wines concentrated with a lower risk of expansion of grey rot.

The property is engaged in an environmental action via the Interprofessional Council of Bordeaux Wines (CIVB) and the support association System of Environmental Management (SME) since 2017. Our engagement is going to be recognized at the second level of the SME in 2019.

The picking occurs at complete maturity. The harvest is scratched before entering the stainless steel tank in order to exclude all the vegetal compounds.

The winemaking is made in thermo-regulated tanks. A particular care is given to the regulation of the temperature along the alcoholic fermentation.

Regular devattings provide a maximum of structure, colors and aromas to our wines. The malolactic fermentation which follows is as well an important preoccupation.

It’s made in stainless steel tank where the temperature can be precisely controlled and allows to the wines to become smoother and to obtain rounder wines rich in mouth. The wines are aged then under wood during 12 months.

The wines of Château d’Argan

6 route de Brie
33340 Saint-Germain-D’Esteuil
+33 (0)5 57 33 09 68
Technical Manager : Amélie MARTIN
Geographic location: North-West of Bordeaux vineyard