Château

Château Bellegrave

shah-TOH bell-GRAHV
How to read this

Capitals mark the stressed syllable. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.

9 hectares of gravel in the south of Pauillac, among the plots of Latour, Pichon-Longueville and Lynch-Bages, owned since 1997 by the Meffre family and run by 2 brothers.

Appellation
Pauillac

The château

Bellegrave is a small property in large company: its vines sit in the south of Pauillac among plots of the great classed growths, between Château Latour, Pichon-Longueville and Lynch-Bages. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it from 1886 as a cru bourgeois supérieur of Armand Roux, at 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). In 1901 the Roux heirs put it up for sale, and H. van der Voort, a trader in San Francisco who had been Armand Roux’s partner and sole heir, bought it. By 1922 it was making 50 to 60 tonneaux from old French vines of the finest varieties, a wine with buyers at several royal courts and in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Scandinavia.

Gabriel Meffre, a nurseryman, discovered the Médoc in 1954. In 1997 J.P. Meffre, already the owner of Château du Glana and Château Lalande in Saint-Julien, bought Bellegrave, and his sons Ludovic and Julien run it today. The 9 hectares of gravel, which drains well and gives back heat at night, are planted at 8,333 vines a hectare, 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Franc, 25 years old on average; recent vintages are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot only. The grapes are picked by hand into small crates, soaked cool for 24 to 48 hours and left 3 weeks in vat, and the wine ages 12 months in French oak, 30% new, for about 22,000 bottles. There are 2 second wines, Les Sieurs de Bellegrave and Confidences de Bellegrave. This is not Château Bellegrave at Valeyrac, in the Médoc appellation.

At a glance

Appellation
Pauillac
Commune
Pauillac
Classification
No classification
Owners
The Meffre family, since 1997
Direction
Ludovic and Julien Meffre
Vineyard
9 hectares; 8,333 vines a hectare, 25 years old on average
Cellar
Picked by hand; 3 weeks in vat; 12 months in French oak, 30% new
Production
About 22,000 bottles
Wines
Château Bellegrave; Les Sieurs de Bellegrave and Confidences de Bellegrave, 2 second wines
The house
Also Château du Glana and Château Lalande, Saint-Julien
Not to be confused with
Château Bellegrave, Valeyrac, Médoc
In history
A cru bourgeois supérieur of Armand Roux from 1886; H. van der Voort from 1901

Sources

Its own publications
Château Bellegrave: history, terroir, technical sheet, the vintages, the wines

Revised October 30, 2026. How I choose sources

The record

Château Bellegrave is in the Pauillac appellation.

The 1855 Classification was published on April 18, 1855, drawn up by the brokers of the Bordeaux exchange for the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Source: Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855

Private

By invitation only.

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