Château Beaumont

The château

The land at Beaumont was cleared in 1772 and first planted in 1824, under Monsieur Bonnin. The Marquis d’Aligre tripled the vineyard between 1830 and 1847, and in 1854 the Bonnin brothers built the château in the Renaissance style, which Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, were still calling new in 1868: a small masterpiece copied from Mansart. The Comte de Gennes came in 1860 and Jean-Victor Herran bought the estate in 1872, but it was under Joseph Germain, from 1890, that Beaumont reached the first rank of the Crus Bourgeois du Médoc. By 1893 the guide described 100 hectares in one piece on a gravel rise and a wine long prized in Germany and Holland, with a gold medal won at Bordeaux in 1882; the new vat house of 1894, where all the work of the vinification was done by machine, drew its praise in 1898. In 1922, under Germain’s widow, 60 hectares made 175 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and the gold medals had come from Bordeaux, Rouen, Brussels and Paris.

Several owners followed between 1925 and 1986. In 1986 the GMF group took over Beaumont, and in 1988 it set up Grands Millésimes de France with the Japanese group Suntory; the company owns Beaumont, Château Beychevelle and the Bordeaux merchant Barrière Frères, and its capital is now held by Suntory and Castel.

The 113 hectares lie in one piece on sandy Günz gravel on the left bank of the Gironde, between Margaux and Saint-Julien, planted 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot and 9% Petit Verdot and farmed under Terra Vitis since the 2004 vintage. The wine spends 12 to 14 months in barrels renewed by thirds each year, and the estate makes about 600,000 bottles on average. Rémi Lonhienne is technical director, Valentin Surel cellar master, and Éric Boissenot consults. Beaumont was a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in the classification of 2020 and again in 2025.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Cussac-Fort-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, 2020 and 2025

Owner

Grands Millésimes de France, set up in 1988, held by Suntory and Castel

Direction

Rémi Lonhienne, technical director; Valentin Surel, cellar master

Consultant

Éric Boissenot

Vineyard

113 hectares in one piece

Soil

Sandy Günz gravel Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 59%, Merlot 32%, Petit Verdot 9%

Farming

Terra Vitis, since the 2004 vintage

Cellar

12 to 14 months in barrels renewed by thirds

Production

About 600,000 bottles

The house

Also Château Beychevelle and Barrière Frères

In history

A château copied from Mansart, 1854; 100 hectares in one piece in 1893; 175 tonneaux in 1922