Château Bastor-Lamontagne

The château

Bastor-Lamontagne lies at Preignac, on the second terrace of the Garonne, and the estate of Bastore goes back to 1453. In 1711 the royal property of Bastore passed to the La Montaigne family. It was sold on December 5, 1809 to Anne Senhil, wife of Jean-Baptiste Guilhou, on September 15, 1827 to Mirian Salzedo, and in 1838 to Joseph Eugène Larrieu, owner of Château Haut-Brion. Under Larrieu it had standing: Charles Cocks, the Englishman whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins of 1850 became the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, ranked La Montagne among the troisièmes crus of his classification of white wines, 5 years before 1855. Louis Jacques Amédée Larrieu inherited it on April 28, 1859, and the edition of 1868 called it the large and fine domaine of La Montagne, whose wines were much sought after. A guide published in 1920, Clarets and Sauternes, gives it 160 hectares, 70 of them vines, about 100 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) in an average year, and gold medals at Paris in 1889 and 1900, at Liège in 1905 and at the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908.

On February 13, 1936 the estate was sold to the Crédit Foncier de France. In July 2014 the BPCE group sold it to the Moulin-Houzé and Cathiard families, and in November 2018 the Helfrich family became the owner.

The soils are gravel and sand in a light matrix of clay. The vineyard is about 80% Sémillon and 20% Sauvignon, Sauvignon Gris included, with a little Muscadelle; the vines average more than 45 years and stand at 7,000 a hectare. The Bordenave parcel was certified organic in 2013 and the whole vineyard in 2016. The pickers go through the vines 3 to 5 times, and the wine spends 12 months in barrel, one third of it new. Les Remparts de Bastor-Lamontagne is the second Sauternes; the estate also sells SO Sauternes, 2 dry whites, Confidence and B de Bastor-Lamontagne, and a Crémant de Bordeaux, SO Bastor-Lamontagne.

At a glance

Appellation

Sauternes

Commune

Preignac

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Helfrich family, since November 2018

Vineyard

Vines more than 45 years old on average; 7,000 a hectare

Soil

Gravel and sand in a light clay matrix, on the second terrace of the Garonne Terroir of Sauternes →

Grapes

Sémillon about 80%, Sauvignon 20%, a little Muscadelle

Farming

Organic: the Bordenave parcel since 2013, the whole vineyard since 2016

Cellar

3 to 5 passes through the vines; 12 months in barrel, one third new

Wines

Château Bastor-Lamontagne; Les Remparts de Bastor-Lamontagne; SO Sauternes; Confidence and B de Bastor-Lamontagne, dry white; SO Bastor-Lamontagne, Crémant de Bordeaux

In history

La Montagne, Larrieu’s, a troisième cru in Charles Cocks’s classification of white wines of 1850