Château Castera

The château

When Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, described it in 1922, they placed it on a gravel rise a few kilometers from Saint-Estèphe, counted it among the oldest in the district and gave it a long history: besieged and then ruined by the Black Prince in the 14th century, partly rebuilt in the 17th, and entered in its day over a drawbridge. On January 21, 1616, Anthoinette de Montaigne, lady of Arsac and of Castera, signed a sale of its wine for 380 livres tournois, and the estate’s white wine carries her name.

The 19th-century books follow it through its owners. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, gives it to the Marquis de Verthamon in 1845, at 60 to 75 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, names it with Livran and Bries-Caillou as the only wines of the commune that stand out. By 1893 the Verthamon holding made 25 tonneaux; the owner in 1901 was Destanque, and in 1922 the widow of E. Lassèverie.

Thomas C. Press owns Castera today; the present era began under his father in 1986. The estate covers 120 hectares at Saint-Germain-d’Esteuil, 63 of them in vines across that commune and Ordonnac, on 2 kinds of soil, clay and limestone and Pyrenean gravel. It has been a Cru Bourgeois since the first list, of 1932, and in February 2025 the Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc classed it Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, one of the 14 estates at that level. It holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) and, since 2024, a certification for its social responsibility as a company. Beside the red grand vin (the estate’s first wine) come Anthoinette, a white Bordeaux of Sauvignon, and 3 wines under the name Cap Castera: a white made from red grapes, a rosé of 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Petit Verdot.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Commune

Saint-Germain-d’Esteuil, with vines at Ordonnac

Classification

Cru Bourgeois since the first list, of 1932; Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2025, 1 of 14

Owner

Thomas C. Press; the present era began under his father in 1986

Vineyard

63 hectares of vines on an estate of 120

Soil

Clay and limestone; Pyrenean gravel Terroir of Médoc →

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale; certified for social responsibility in 2024

Wines

Château Castera; Anthoinette, white; Cap Castera Blanc de Noir, Rosé and Petit Verdot

In history

A sale of wine signed by Anthoinette de Montaigne on January 21, 1616; the Marquis de Verthamon, 60 to 75 tonneaux, in 1845