Château Beychevelle

The château

Bishop François de Foix-Candale built Beychevelle in 1565, and the name belongs to the next chapter. His niece married the Duc d’Épernon, and the story goes that ships passing on the estuary lowered their sails in homage to him: bécha véla, lower sail, in Gascon, became Beychevelle. The Brassier family later held the estate by inheritance and kept a private port on the river, and a baroness carried it through the Revolution. In 1825 it sold for 650,000 francs to Pierre-François Guestier, the same price Hugh Barton had paid for Langoa in 1821, a sale William Franck set down in the 1853 edition of his Traité sur les vins du Médoc; by then Charles Cocks, in his guide of 1846, had already listed P. F. Guestier, peer of France, as the owner of an estate that had always been important.

Guestier modernized the estate, and the Heine family enlarged the château in 1875. Suntory has owned Beychevelle since 1989, and the Castel Group alongside it since 2011, both through Grands Millésimes de France; Philippe Blanc is managing director, and Romain Ducolomb, who came from Clinet in Pomerol in 2012, technical director. The estate covers 250 hectares, 90 of them vines, on 2 plateaus of deep Garonne gravel laid down in the Pleistocene. The vines, 38 years old on average, stand at 8,300 to 10,000 to the hectare: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 3% Petit Verdot. The wine spends 18 months in barrel, 70% of it new, and production runs to 240,000 to 260,000 bottles. No herbicide has been used since 2005; the estate is ISO 14001 and Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms), level 3, and has held the EcoJardin label since November 2024. Amiral de Beychevelle is the second wine and Les Brulières de Beychevelle a Haut-Médoc.

The 1999, which I tasted in October 2024, showed what 25 years do to this wine: blackcurrant, cedar, damp earth and tobacco, the tannins softened, the fruit held back and the acidity still fresh, as a cooler year should leave it. A fine example of well-aged Bordeaux.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Julien

Classification

Quatrième Cru Classé 1855

Owner

Suntory, since 1989, and the Castel Group, since 2011, through Grands Millésimes de France

Direction

Philippe Blanc, managing director; Romain Ducolomb, technical director, since 2012

Vineyard

250 hectares, 90 of them vines; 8,300 to 10,000 vines a hectare; vines 38 years old on average

Soil

Deep Garonne gravel from the Pleistocene, on 2 plateaus Terroir of Saint-Julien →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 57%, Merlot 40%, Petit Verdot 3%

Farming

ISO 14001; Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3; EcoJardin since November 2024; no herbicides since 2005

Cellar

18 months in barrel, 70% new

Production

240,000 to 260,000 bottles

Wines

Château Beychevelle; Amiral de Beychevelle; Les Brulières de Beychevelle, Haut-Médoc