Château Carcanieux

The château

Carcanieux stands at Queyrac, in the north of the Médoc, on the rise known as the Terres Hautes de Carcanieux. Stones lie everywhere around the château, and the name carved on its pediment, “Carcanieux Les Graves”, tells the same story. Its lords go back to the last years of English Guyenne: Alfred Danflou, in Les grands crus bordelais of 1866, counts the sires de Carcanieux among the Médoc lords whose lands were seized after Talbot’s defeat.

In the 19th century the name carried weight. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists Château Carcanieux under the widow Montouroy in 1845, at 120 to 140 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and in 1855 Armand d’Armailhacq, in La culture des vignes, la vinification et les vins dans le Médoc, named M. Montouroy’s Carcanieux the best-noted cru of Queyrac. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, wrote in 1868 that Château Carcanieux, on its plateau of gravel, made the best wines of the commune; they follow it under Bédel, at 120 tonneaux, in 1874, J. Chauvelet in 1886, Drouyneau et Cie in 1893 and Gasqueton et Cie in 1898, with a Carcanieux-les-Lattes beside it and, from 1893, a Château Carcanieux-les-Graves under Egreteau. By 1922 only Les Graves Carcanieux, under Egreteau fils, and Carcanieux-les-Lattes, under Anatole Bourg, remained. The 2 properties shared the name until 1968, when, after their admission to the syndicate of the Crus Bourgeois, they separated to avoid confusion, as Château Carcanieux and Château Les Lattes.

Vignobles de Terroirs, the range of châteaux the Groupe Taillan formed in 2008, has owned Carcanieux since 2009. The property covers 40 hectares around the château, 26 of them in vines: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, planted mostly in the 1970s and now being renewed by an intensive replanting program, 30 years old on average. Green harvesting and leaf removal are part of the year’s work. The grapes are picked by machine and fermented plot by plot in temperature-controlled stainless steel, with a long time on the skins, and the wine is aged in vat and in wood; about 180,000 bottles. Carcanieux is a Cru Bourgeois in the classifications of 2020 and 2025.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Commune

Queyrac

Classification

Cru Bourgeois, 2020 and 2025

Owner

Vignobles de Terroirs, since 2009

Vineyard

26 hectares on a property of 40; vines 30 years old on average

Soil

Gravel Terroir of Médoc →

Grapes

Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot

Cellar

Picked by machine; plot by plot in stainless steel; long time on the skins; aged in vat and in wood

Production

About 180,000 bottles

Wines

Château Carcanieux

The house

Vignobles de Terroirs, a range of châteaux formed by the Groupe Taillan in 2008

In history

The widow Montouroy, 120 to 140 tonneaux, in 1845; the best wines of Queyrac in 1868; separated from Château Les Lattes in 1968