Château Bournac

The château

Bournac made wine long before the present family came: in 1876 Théophile Malvezin and Édouard Féret, in Le Médoc et ses vins, credited the property with 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). On October 30, 1915 the owners’ son was declared dead for France, and with no one to take it on, the place was slowly abandoned. The Secret family, who had grown cereals in Picardy, arrived in 1970, when Pierre Secret bought it with its vines under brambles and its buildings partly in ruins; the château itself had been sold a few years earlier to an architect who rebuilt it entirely. Pierre and his sons planted the first vines in 1975 and had 14 hectares by 1980. The rank came quickly: Cru Bourgeois in 1979. It was a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2003 and is a Cru Bourgeois in the classifications of 2020 and 2025.

In 1980 the 2 eldest sons, Hubert and Didier Secret, founded Château La Chandellière, and in 1990 Bruno Secret succeeded his father at Bournac, where he stayed until 2008. Didier’s 2 eldest sons, Guillaume and Thibaud, then joined their father and their uncle Hubert, and the 2 estates were brought into one company, the GAEC de Cazaillan, each made and aged at its own site. In 2017 Guillaume and Thibaud bought the château house, which had come up for sale, joined it to the vineyard again and opened it to guests; Guillaume also keeps bees at Bournac, first harvested in 2020.

The 14 hectares at Civrac-en-Médoc lie on clay, limestone and clay and limestone, at 5,050 vines a hectare, with vines 35 years old on average. The parcels are selected, the grapes picked by machine and sorted by hand, and they are given a cold maceration at 5 to 8°C before fermentation; 80% of the wine spends 12 months in barrels, new, of 1 vintage and of 2 vintages in equal shares, and the rest stays in vat, for about 80,000 bottles. Little B, mostly Merlot, is made at Bournac too, and Le Secret is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from the oldest parcels, nearly 50 years old, aged 18 months in new French oak. The vineyards took AREA in 2016, Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 in 2018, and ISO 14001, Bee Friendly and Terra Vitis in 2020.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Commune

Civrac-en-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois, 2020 and 2025; Cru Bourgeois in 1979; Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2003

Owners

The Secret family, since 1970; the GAEC de Cazaillan

Vineyard

14 hectares; 5,050 vines a hectare; vines 35 years old on average

Soil

Clay, limestone, clay and limestone Terroir of Médoc →

Farming

AREA, 2016; Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, 2018; ISO 14001, Bee Friendly and Terra Vitis, 2020

Cellar

Picked by machine, sorted by hand; 80% for 12 months in barrels, 20% in vats

Production

About 80,000 bottles

Wines

Château Bournac; Little B, mostly Merlot; Le Secret, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon

The house

Also Château La Chandellière, Médoc, made at its own site

In history

50 tonneaux in 1876