Château Arnauld

The château

Arnauld was founded at the end of the 17th century, and by 1868 it was a cru bourgeois of Arcins in the hands of the Lafargue family. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it under J.-B. Lafargue, at 40 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) in 1874, and then under Albert Lafargue, as the Cru Arnauld from 1898, at 60 tonneaux by 1922.

The estate of today begins in 2007, when Vignobles de Larose, the Allianz group’s wine company, bought it: 76 hectares, 40 of them under vine. The new owners rebuilt it around a selection of its best plots, and the 2009 was the 1st vintage from the 1st of them, 5 hectares by the river. Franck Bijon and Hubert de Boüard led the revival. Lorraine Watrin is general manager of Vignobles de Larose, which also owns Château Larose-Trintaudon and Château Tour de Pez, and Jérôme Puntous runs its vineyards. Arnauld was a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in the classification of 2020 and is not in that of 2025.

The vines lie at Arcins and Lamarque, very close to the Margaux and Moulis appellations, on sandy loam and rolled pebbles carried down from the Pyrenees, Günz gravel over clay, deep and well drained. They are 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot and 10% Petit Verdot, old vines 40 years old on average, farmed first with measured spraying and now by organic methods. The grapes are picked entirely by hand and sorted in the vineyard, cold-soaked, fermented in temperature-controlled steel vats and left 3 to 4 weeks on the skins, and the wine ages in new French oak from the Nièvre and the Allier. The other wines are Comte d’Arnauld and Collection Arnauld.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Arcins

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2020; not in the list of 2025

Owner

Vignobles de Larose, of the Allianz group, since 2007

Direction

Lorraine Watrin, general manager of Vignobles de Larose; Jérôme Puntous, the vineyards

Vineyard

At Arcins and Lamarque; vines 40 years old on average

Soil

Sandy loam and Günz gravel over clay Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 70%, Merlot 20%, Petit Verdot 10%

Farming

Organic methods

Cellar

Picked by hand; cold soak; steel vats; 3 to 4 weeks on the skins; new French oak

Wines

Château Arnauld; Comte d’Arnauld; Collection Arnauld

The house

Also Château Larose-Trintaudon, Haut-Médoc, and Château Tour de Pez, Saint-Estèphe

In history

A cru bourgeois of Arcins under the Lafargue family, 1868 to 1922