Was Cheval Blanc once part of Figeac?

Paris, 1878. At the Universal Exhibition the jury gave just 4 gold medals to the wines of Saint-Émilion, Pomerol and Fronsac. When the Bordeaux trade's reference listed the laureates in its English edition of 1883, the golds included "Laussag-Fourgaud, Chateau-Cheval-Blanc, at Saint-Emilion." Among the bronze medals stood "Fournier, Chateau-Figeac, at Saint-Emilion."

The list mangles the name of Cheval Blanc's owner, not the result: he was Laussac-Fourcaud, a surname the books also give in the other order, Fourcaud-Laussac. Same exhibition, same jury, 2 neighbors on different lines. The land that took gold had belonged to the estate that took bronze less than 50 years before.

Nobody on either side disputes that. Cheval Blanc's own history says: "Over the next 20 years, successive acquisition of plots of land from Château Figeac came to form Cheval Blanc's 39-hectare domain." That is a longer span than Figeac's own restorer would give. Figeac's timeline records the sale and names no buyer.

What the record adds is the race. In the earliest tables that name them, neither estate stood in Saint-Émilion's first class, and in 1853 only the Figeac holding carried a word of praise. The trade dated the overtake in its own words, long before any classification did.

So there are 2 questions. How did a parcel that started in the second class pass the estate it came from? And why does only one of the 2 houses tell the story in full? For that the best witness is a man from Figeac itself.

A countess sells

Figeac was old, a vast, aristocratic estate that had belonged to the Carles since 1654, when it came to them through the marriage of Marie Decazes.

Under 1832 the timeline gives the sale 2 sentences: "Countess Félicité de Carle-Trajet sells the first parcels of the great Figeac estate following a reversal of fortune. The current estate occupies the heart of the former property, around the three gravel hills and the château." Neither sentence names who bought.

Cheval Blanc's history does: "The prestigious career of Cheval Blanc began in 1832 when the heart of the domain was purchased by Jean-Jacques Ducasse." In 1838 Ducasse took another 16 hectares. Thierry Manoncourt, Figeac's great restorer, dated the transfer 1832 to 1838 in a speech that comes later in this story.

Both estates claim the heart. Figeac kept "the heart of the former property"; Ducasse bought "the heart of the domain."

Both in the second class of early lists

The earliest table to name the Figeac holdings is a list of 1841 by Lecoutre de Beauvais, reprinted in the 1850 guide of Charles Cocks, an Englishman whose book grew, under the publisher Édouard Féret, into the trade's standard reference, Bordeaux et ses vins.

No Figeac stands in its first class. Under « HAUT-SAINT-ÉMILION, 2me CLASSE » come 4 holdings that all carry the name, each with its crop in tonneaux (a Bordeaux tonneau is 4 barrels, about 900 liters): « Figeac (Chauvin) 35 / Id. (Largeteau) 25 / Figeac (Lucasse) 25 / Id. (Lebel) 50 ». "Lucasse" is almost certainly Ducasse: the figure matches Franck's a few years later. That identification is my inference, and so is my reading that the second class comes from the same list of 1841.

So, if my reading holds, in 1841 the future Cheval Blanc still answered to Figeac, in second class, like every other Figeac.

William Franck's Traité sur les vins du Médoc, the Bordeaux wine merchant's book of prices and rankings, set out Saint-Émilion in 2 lists in 1853. The first, « CLASSIFICATION DES VINS DE PREMIÈRE MARQUE », the classification of first-grade wines, held Belair, Canon, Beauséjour and Ausone, among others. Both names appear only in the second, « CLASSIFICATION DES VINS DE SECONDE MARQUE », the classification of second-grade wines:

« Au Cheval-Blanc. Ducasse. 25 30 »

« A Figeac. Laveine (très-bon crû) 40 45 »

The Figeac holding of Laveine, which I take to be the mother estate, made more and carried the praise, « très-bon crû », a very good growth, though inside the second list. Both are written as places, « Au Cheval-Blanc » and « A Figeac », in the same form as « Au Canton » beside them. In both lists, only Belair is yet a « Château ».

The period books in this file do not say where the name Cheval Blanc came from. The earliest record among them, Franck's, treats « Au Cheval-Blanc » as a place name, and a common one: Féret's survey of the Gironde lists a « hôt. du Cheval-Blanc » and a holding « A Cheval-Blanc » at Saint-Germain-de-Grave, and his 1922 edition has places called « Au Cheval-Blanc » in other communes. The stories told about the name today are modern tradition; the period books give them nothing.

Priced alike, and set apart

The parcel changed its label first: from 1852 the former Figeac wines were sold under the Cheval Blanc name. The next owner was Laussac-Fourcaud, proprietor from 1854.

In 1868 Féret's guide did something new. It lifted the 2 names out of the Saint-Émilion hierarchy into a group with a Médoc character, wines that « rappellent beaucoup le Médoc », that strongly recall the Médoc, and priced them together: « Les crûs Château-Figeac et Cheval-Blanc vendent comme tous les premiers crûs de ces deux communes. » The growths Château-Figeac and Cheval-Blanc sell as all the first growths of these two communes do. Both stood at 50 to 70 tonneaux, and Figeac was then owned by Loyer.

A footnote gives the earliest description of Cheval Blanc in this file, and a clue to how the parcel caught up:

The domain of Cheval-Blanc sits on the two communes of Saint-Émilion and Pomerol. It offers a very curious mix of soils and subsoils whose nature changes at every step. Here, strong soils over clay; elsewhere, light soils over clay or gravel, or else gravelly soils over alios (iron pan). In this last kind of ground, M. Laussac-Fourcaud had the happy idea of adopting the cultivation and pruning of the Médoc.

« Dans cette dernière nature de terrain, M. Laussac-Fourcaud a eu l'heureuse idée d'adopter la culture et la taille du Médoc. »

Médoc pruning on gravel over iron pan, in print in 1868.

The jury splits them

In 1874 the guide kept the pair together, at one price: « Les crus de Figeac et de Cheval-Blanc vendent comme les 1res crûs de ces deux communes. » The growths of Figeac and of Cheval-Blanc sell as the first growths of these two communes. The table showed Château-Figeac, under Fournier, at 30 tonneaux and Cheval-Blanc at 60.

In tonneaux, the child now made double the château that kept the Figeac name. That flatters the child. By then the old Figeac lands were split among several owners, and the château was only one of them. In the table of 1886, Château-Figeac stands at 30 beside 2 Latour-Figeac holdings at 20 and 15: one a documented piece of Château-Figeac, the other, as I read it, the vineyard called in 1893 a « démembrement » of it, a dismemberment. Together the 3 made more than Cheval Blanc's 60. By 1908 the château on its own made more, 150 tonneaux to 100.

The crop is the wrong measure. The right ones are a medal and a price.

Cheval Blanc's gold was one of 4 in the Paris group; the others went to Beauséjour and, in Pomerol, to Petrus and to one laureate entered as the domain of Rouget and Gazin. Figeac took bronze. The next year the mother lost more ground: La Tour-Figeac, Féret explains, « est formé d'une partie des vignes du Château-Figeac, acquise par M. Corbière en 1879 », is formed of a part of Château-Figeac's vines, bought by M. Corbière in 1879. The breaking-up had not stopped in 1838.

The trade's price sentence did not split them. In 1886, and again in 1893, the guide wrote « Les crus de Cheval-Blanc et de Figeac vendent comme les 1ers crus de ces deux communes », the growths of Cheval-Blanc and of Figeac sell as the first growths of both communes.

All the while, the names on Château-Figeac kept changing. The tables give its owners as Loyer in 1868, Fournier from 1874 to 1883, a Mme Wedel in 1886 and Villepigue in 1893: 4 names in 25 years, 5 in 40 if Franck's Laveine of 1853 held the same estate, as I read it. Cheval Blanc stayed with the Fourcaud-Laussac family, « de père en fils », from father to son, as Féret put it in 1922, and the man credited with Médoc pruning held it from 1854 through the gold of 1878. The Villepigues, who bought Figeac in 1892, were Thierry Manoncourt's grandparents. He would later name the churn himself.

Singled out by the trade

In 1893 the guide gave Cheval Blanc 100 tonneaux and a line of praise: « Ce cru a obtenu les plus hautes récompenses qui aient été accordées aux vins de la région », this growth has won the highest awards that have been granted to the wines of the region.

Figeac, now Villepigue's, got the proudest note the trade wrote about the mother. Château-Figeac, it says, is « contigu au Château-Cheval-Blanc », next to Château-Cheval-Blanc, and still « le plus étendu des 1ers crus de Saint-Emilion », the largest of the first growths of Saint-Émilion: 52 hectares, 42 of them in vines, « sur un sol de grave et de sable », on a soil of gravel and sand. Its wine « fut toujours des plus renommés de la région », was always among the most renowned of the region.

The same edition, 2 pages later, has the rougher word. In its note on La Tour-du-Pin-Figeac, the vineyard between the 2 estates, Féret sets it beside Cheval Blanc, « séparé seulement par le chemin de Pomerol à Saint-Emilion, entre la Conseillante au N. et au S., le Château-Figeac, dont il est un démembrement »: separated only by the road from Pomerol to Saint-Émilion, between La Conseillante to the north and, to the south, Château-Figeac, of which it is a dismemberment.

Within 5 years Figeac was gone from the price sentence. Around 1898 Féret's Libourne volume and his edition of that year opened a new heading, « Graves Saint-Émilion », and wrote: "The growth of Cheval-Blanc and certain first growths of this category obtain the prices given to the first growths of Saint-Émilion." In the French, « Le cru du Cheval-Blanc et certains premiers crus de cette catégorie obtiennent les prix accordés aux premiers crus de Saint-Émilion ».

Cheval Blanc by name; Figeac, I take it, among « certains premiers crus ». In the table below, both stood at 100 tonneaux. Same crop, one name.

In 1922 the guide gave Cheval Blanc a heading to itself, « 1er GRAND CRU GRAVES SAINT-ÉMILION », first great growth of the Graves Saint-Émilion, and this sentence: « Le cru de Cheval-Blanc, 1er grand cru exceptionnel, peut être considéré comme l'égal d'Ausone dans cette région », an exceptional first great growth that may be considered the equal of Ausone in this region. Figeac sat in a class of first growths, « 1ers CRUS GRAVES SAINT-ÉMILION », with La Dominique and Ripeau.

Figeac's owner acknowledges the birth

The 2 estates tell the ground differently. Figeac's site calls its own "a great and singular gravel terroir, the only one of its kind in Saint-Émilion." Cheval Blanc's vineyard page says clay and gravel meet there in "more or less equal proportions." Féret, from 1893 to 1922, gave Figeac gravel and sand. The gravel is there, but Figeac's character comes above all from its clay. Both estates claim the heart of 1832; both claim gravel now.

The birth is told differently too. Manoncourt spent 3 years in a disciplinary camp after he refused to work as a laborer for the Germans. He came home in 1943, in time to work the harvest. In a speech of 2009, hosted on the estate's own site, he said it plainly:

"Although Figeac had given birth to Cheval Blanc (1832-1838), it had fallen into disrepair due to numerous changes in ownership before its purchase by my family, who themselves had only a distant relationship to the estate."

The changes of owner are there in Féret's tables. The timeline his successors publish has no "Cheval Blanc," no "Ducasse" and no "Fourcaud" anywhere on the page.

The law kept its own score. Saint-Émilion's first classification came in 1955, and Ausone and Cheval Blanc held its highest rank from that first list on. Figeac entered a rank below and stayed there; in 2012 the list promoted Angélus and Pavie and left Figeac where it was.

Figeac had long wanted the rank of Premier Grand Cru Classé "A." The estate got it in 2022, on a list Cheval Blanc was no longer on. Cheval Blanc had filed no application by June 30, 2021. The INAO's list of September 8, 2022 reads « Château FIGEAC (distinction A) », confirmed by a ministerial order of December 15.

Left the classification, and the price held

By 2022 the withdrawal of Cheval Blanc and Ausone had had no material effect on the price of their wines. One vintage sets the 2 estates side by side: the wine critic Jane Anson, in her survey of the Bordeaux vintages since 1855, calls the 1947 Cheval Blanc "particularly renowned," and writes that "The 1947 Figeac is still extremely impressive also as of 2019." The family dated its fame later than the trade, whose price sentence had already set Cheval Blanc apart by 1898. Edmund Penning-Rowsell, the English author of The Wines of Bordeaux, wrote in 1979: "Cheval Blanc's reputation, as Monsieur Fourcaud-Laussac, one of the two brother proprietors, confirmed to me, really began with the famous 1921 vintage."

The verdict

Both estates concede the sale of 1832, and Figeac's own restorer called it a birth. In the lists of 1841 and 1853 the parcel and the Figeac holdings all stood in the second class, and in 1853 only Figeac carried a word of praise. Féret priced them level as firsts from 1868 to 1893, though the Paris jury split them in 1878, gold against bronze. By 1898 the trade's price sentence named Cheval Blanc alone, and in 1922 the guide gave it a class of its own and wrote that it may be considered the equal of Ausone. Beside that rise the record sets 2 things: Médoc pruning on Cheval Blanc's gravel, and a mother estate that kept changing hands.

Confirmed. Conceded by the seller, dated by the trade, explained by the ground. The parcel left in second class and took gold over its mother's bronze in 1878. Figeac's great restorer admitted the birth in so many words; the timeline his successors publish still names no one. The land kept the score.

The wine

Château Cheval Blanc was bought by Bernard Arnault and Baron Albert Frère in the autumn of 1998. The estate covers 42 hectares, divided into 56 plots, and its vineyard is planted to 55% cabernet franc, 40% merlot and 5% cabernet sauvignon; the second wine is Le Petit Cheval, red and white. Cheval Blanc has stood outside the Saint-Émilion classification since the list of 2022; its homepage still says "Premier Grand Cru Classé A since 1954."

Château Figeac belongs to the Manoncourt family, with Frédéric Faye as managing director. The estate covers 54 hectares in a single block, nearly 41 of them in vines, with cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc at 70% of the blend and merlot the rest. Its second wine has been made since the 1945 vintage, and has been called Petit-Figeac since the 2012 vintage.

The vineyards still argue. In the 1960s Cheval Blanc tried its neighbor's grape: a little cabernet sauvignon went in, possibly because of its important part at Figeac, and it was not judged a success. Today cabernet sauvignon is 5% of Cheval Blanc's vineyard, while at Figeac the 2 cabernets make 70% of the blend. The child took the Médoc's pruning; the mother kept the Médoc's grapes.

Chronology

Year	What the record shows
1654	Figeac passes to the Carles by the marriage of Marie Decazes. [Figeac estate timeline]
18th c.	The comte de Calonne among the buyers of Figeac's wines. [Philippe Meyzie, « Du négoce aux journaux d'annonces »]
1832 to 1838	The countess sells the first parcels "following a reversal of fortune"; Jean-Jacques Ducasse buys "the heart of the domain," and in 1838 takes a further 16 hectares. [Figeac estate timeline; Cheval Blanc estate history; Winedoctor; Manoncourt 2009, "(1832-1838)"]
1841	The list has 4 "Figeac" holdings, all second class, one of them probably Ducasse's (printed "Lucasse"). [Lecoutre de Beauvais list, in Cocks 1850]
1852	The former "Figeac wines" first sold under the Cheval Blanc name. [Cheval Blanc estate history]
1853	Both in the "seconde marque," both written as places: "Au Cheval-Blanc. Ducasse. 25 30"; "A Figeac. Laveine (très-bon crû) 40 45." [Franck, 3rd ed.]
1854	Fourcaud-Laussac proprietor. [Cocks and Féret, 2nd English ed., 1883; G.A.K. 1920]
1862	London: Cheval Blanc's first medal, bronze. [G.A.K. 1920; Cocks and Féret, 2nd English ed., 1883; Cocks and Féret 1922; Cheval Blanc estate history]
1868	Level and set apart, both priced as firsts; Médoc pruning at Cheval Blanc. [Cocks and Féret, 2nd ed.]
1874	Château-Figeac 30 tonneaux, Cheval-Blanc 60; still one price for both. [Cocks and Féret, 3rd ed.]
1878	Paris: Cheval Blanc gold, Figeac bronze. [Cocks and Féret, 2nd English ed., 1883]
1879	Corbière buys part of Château-Figeac's vines: La Tour-Figeac. [Féret, Libourne volume; Cocks and Féret 1898]
1886	Still one price for both, « comme les 1ers crus »; again in 1893. [Cocks and Féret, 5th and 6th eds.]
1892 to 1893	The Villepigues buy Figeac, 52 hectares, 42 in vines; La Tour-du-Pin-Figeac "un démembrement" of it. [Figeac estate timeline; Cocks and Féret, 6th ed.]
1898	Only Cheval Blanc named in the price sentence; both at 100 tonneaux. [Féret, Libourne volume; Cocks and Féret, 7th ed.]
1908	Figeac 150 tonneaux, Cheval Blanc 100. [Féret, St-Émilion et ses vins]
1921	The vintage the family dates its fame from. [Penning-Rowsell 1979]
1922	Cheval Blanc alone as "1er grand cru exceptionnel," "l'égal d'Ausone"; Figeac with La Dominique and Ripeau. [Cocks and Féret, 9th ed.]
1955	First classification: Cheval Blanc and Ausone in its highest rank, Figeac a rank below. [Tolhurst 2022; Figeac estate timeline]
2009	Manoncourt: "Figeac had given birth to Cheval Blanc (1832-1838)." [Manoncourt 2009]
2021 to 2022	Cheval Blanc files no application (news of July 9, 2021); Figeac promoted, "distinction A." [Winedoctor; INAO, September 8, 2022; arrêté of December 15, 2022]

Sources

Period sources, read in the original.

Charles Cocks, Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, Bordeaux, Féret fils, 1850, Haut-Saint-Émilion, first and second classes, after the list of Lecoutre de Beauvais, 1841.
William Franck, Traité sur les vins du Médoc, 3rd edition, Bordeaux, 1853, the Saint-Émilion classifications of the first and second marque.
Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, Bordeaux et ses vins classés par ordre de mérite, 2nd edition, Bordeaux, 1868, Saint-Émilion, Château Figeac and Château Cheval-Blanc; 3rd edition, 1874; 5th edition, 1886; 6th edition, 1893, Château-Figeac, Château-Cheval-Blanc and La Tour-du-Pin-Figeac; 7th edition, 1898; 9th edition, 1922, the Graves Saint-Émilion, the exhibition awards, the Fourcaud-Laussac family and places called « Au Cheval-Blanc ».
Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, Bordeaux and its wines, 2nd English edition, Bordeaux, 1883, Saint-Émilion and the laureates of the Paris Exhibition of 1878.
Édouard Féret, Les vins de l'arrondissement de Libourne, c. 1897 (text of the 1898 edition), Graves Saint-Émilion and La Tour-Figeac.
Édouard Féret, St-Émilion et ses vins, Bordeaux, c. 1908, Château Figeac, Château Cheval-Blanc and La Tour-du-Pin-Figeac.
Édouard Féret, Statistique de la Gironde, 1874, for the « hôt. du Cheval-Blanc » and the holding « A Cheval-Blanc » at Saint-Germain-de-Grave.
G.A.K., Clarets and Sauternes: Classed Growths of the Médoc and Other Famous Red and White Wines of the Gironde, London, 1920, Château Cheval Blanc.

Modern scholarship.

Philippe Meyzie, « Du négoce aux journaux d'annonces », for the comte de Calonne among Figeac's buyers.
Edmund Penning-Rowsell, The Wines of Bordeaux, 4th edition, 1979, as reprinted in On Bordeaux, Académie du Vin Library, 2020, Château Cheval Blanc.
Jane Anson, "Bordeaux terroir: time to change the conversation?", Inside Bordeaux, December 2024, from a speech to the Académie Internationale du Vin, November 2024.
Jane Anson, "Bordeaux Survives the War," in On Bordeaux, Académie du Vin Library, 2020, for Thierry Manoncourt.
Jane Anson, "The Vintages, 1855 Onwards," Inside Bordeaux, for 1947.
Alex Hall, Vineyard Intelligence, "The price of classification," Inside Bordeaux, 2022, for Figeac's ambition and the effect of the withdrawal on prices.
Tor N. Tolhurst, "Left, right, or both? Long-run returns from Bordeaux," Journal of Wine Economics 17 (2022), 225 to 240.

The estates, the state and the press.

Château Cheval Blanc, the history (English and French), the vineyard page and the homepage. chateau-cheval-blanc.com
Château Figeac, the history timeline, the pages on the place and the wine, and the homepage. chateau-figeac.com
Thierry Manoncourt, "The Story of a Life Dedicated to Innovation," text of a speech of 2009, hosted on the Château Figeac site. chateau-figeac.com
INAO, the classification of Saint-Émilion grands crus, communiqué of September 8, 2022, and the arrêté of December 15, 2022, published in the Journal officiel of December 22, 2022.
Chris Kissack, Winedoctor, the pages on Château Cheval Blanc and Château La Tour Figeac, and the report on the withdrawal of July 10, 2021. thewinedoctor.com
Thibault De Gregori, Vintage by UGCB, September 21, 2020, on the name. vintagebyugcb.com

How this was checked

Every period quotation was read in the original text, in a private library of 244,000+ wine documents, the oldest from 1373. Where an English edition is quoted its wording is kept, spelling and all; the other translations from the French are mine, with the French beneath the lines that matter most so that you can check one against the other. If a page cited here does not say what I say it says, write to me at antonio@bordeauxreviews.com and I will correct it.

To cite this article: Antonio Assumpção, "Was Cheval Blanc once part of Figeac?", Bordeaux Reviews, Château Case Files 18/70, 2026, https://bordeauxreviews.com/case-files/did-figeac-give-birth-to-cheval-blanc/.

Antonio "Guto" Assumpção stands at the intersection of law and wine. Admitted to practice law in Florida, New York, and Rio de Janeiro, he is also a French Wine Scholar and a Master of Bordeaux by the Wine Scholar Guild and holds a WSET Level 3 certification. Antonio has been studying, collecting, and tasting Bordeaux wines for the past 20 years, and his articles blend a detailed analysis with a connoisseur's insight into the world of wine. Follow him on Instagram at @BordeauxReviews.