Haut-Médoc

The place

Haut-Médoc is the southern half of the peninsula with the 6 communal appellations cut out of it: 28 communes from the edge of the city at Blanquefort to Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, north of Saint-Estèphe. The vines stand on sheets of sandy and clayey gravel carried down by the Garonne and the Dordogne over Tertiary clay and limestone, in the rises the Médoc calls croupes. 240 growers make an average of 250,000 hectoliters a year.

The rules

Red only. The cahier des charges (the appellation’s official rulebook), the appellation’s official rulebook, homologated on July 31, 2025, keeps the 6 Médoc varieties as principal and admits 4 accessory ones, Arinarnoa, Castets, Marselan and Touriga Nacional, to 5% of an estate’s vines. 6,500 vines a hectare at least, 55 hectoliters with a ceiling of 65, 11% of natural alcohol; the wine is raised until March 31 and sold from April 15 of the year after the harvest, earlier than before. The same order requires every estate to be organic or to hold an environmental certification of level 2 or 3. The appellation dates from November 14, 1936.

The names

Cantemerle at Macau, the Fifth Growth added to the list in September 1855: we wrote about that here. Sociando-Mallet at Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, the estate that stayed out of every classification on purpose: we wrote about that here. 5 growths of 1855 sit in the appellation, and the classification of 2025 holds 53 Crus Bourgeois here, against 153 in the list of 1932. Ranking wines is an old Bordeaux habit: the Jurade of Bordeaux made the first classification of the wines of Guyenne in 1647.

Color

Red

Communes

28, from Blanquefort to Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne

Growers

240; about 250,000 hectoliters a year

Grapes

The 6 Médoc varieties; Arinarnoa, Castets, Marselan and Touriga Nacional to 5% since 2025

Density

6,500 vines a hectare at least

Yield

55 hectoliters a hectare, ceiling 65

Alcohol

11% natural at least

Release

From April 15 of the year after the harvest

Classified

5 growths of 1855; 53 Crus Bourgeois in the classification of 2025

AOC since

November 14, 1936; cahier of July 31, 2025

Sources: BO-AGRI, cahier des charges Haut-Médoc, arrêté du 31 juillet 2025 · INAO, Haut-Médoc · INAO and the Fédération des Grands Vins de Bordeaux, cahiers des charges · Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux · Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855