Château d’Agassac

The château

Agassac was a seigneury of 800 hectares in 1238, feudal in its architecture, and Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, called it an old barony, also known as Château de Ludon. From 1580 it belonged to the Pommiers family, one of whom was president of the Parliament of Guyenne, and the château was remodeled in the Renaissance style. The first vines were planted in 1792.

In the 19th century the name that counts is M. Richier’s. The last baron d’Agassac died in 1826, leaving two thirds of the estate to his daughter, wife of J.-B. Casterat, and in 1841 their son-in-law, Richier, bought those two thirds; on January 13, 1853 the whole estate was knocked down to him at auction for 878,000 francs. Armand d’Armailhacq, in De la culture des vignes, la vinification et les vins dans le Médoc, named Agassac among the bourgeois supérieurs of Ludon in 1855 and, in his edition of 1867, credited Richier with being the first in the Médoc to train vines on iron wire. By 1868 the estate covered 275 hectares, 100 of them vines making 200 to 250 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), with a prime d’honneur in 1860 and a gold medal in 1867. A second cru grew up beside it: from 1886 the books list a Château Ludon-Pomiès-Agassac, which the Reneteau brothers acquired after a partition and a sale in 1892, and in 1922 Château Pomiès-Agassac, the baronne de Floris’s, was a cru bourgeois supérieur of 35 hectares of vines making 100 tonneaux.

In 1960 the family that owned Château Calon-Ségur bought Agassac, and in 1996 Groupama. Today it belongs to Beautiful Life Wines, the company of the Breton entrepreneur Gérard Jicquel, its managing partner, which has its seat at the château and joins Agassac with Château Fourcas Dupré, in Listrac, taken on 3 vintages earlier. Agassac was a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in the classification of 2020 and is not in the list of 2025.

The 43 hectares lie on 2 gravel rises and a zone of sandy gravel: the first rise, of very fine Garonne gravel, gives finesse, the sandy gravel supple wines and the second rise more structured ones. The vineyard is 50% Merlot, 47% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Cabernet Franc, 25 years old on average and planted at 6,700 vines a hectare. It has been certified Terra Vitis since 2004 and holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 and ISO 14001; the soil is worked, no weedkiller is used, and typhlodromes, natural predators of harmful mites, have been brought back. The grapes go through 2 sortings, in the vineyard and in the cellar, and are macerated 3 to 4 weeks in 23 temperature-controlled stainless steel vats; the wine ages 12 to 15 months, 60% in new barrels and 40% in vat.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Ludon-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2020; not in the list of 2025

Owner

Beautiful Life Wines, the company of Gérard Jicquel, its managing partner

Vineyard

43 hectares; vines of 25 years on average; 6,700 vines a hectare

Soil

2 gravel rises and a zone of sandy gravel Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Merlot 50%, Cabernet Sauvignon 47%, Cabernet Franc 3%

Farming

Terra Vitis since 2004; Haute Valeur Environnementale at level 3; ISO 14001

Cellar

2 sortings; 23 temperature-controlled stainless steel vats; 12 to 15 months, 60% in new barrels and 40% in vat

Wines

Château d’Agassac; Précision d’Agassac; L’Agassant d’Agassac; Château Pomiès-Agassac and its Tête de Cuvée; Le Rosé d’Agassac

The house

Also Château Fourcas Dupré, Listrac-Médoc

In history

A seigneury of 800 hectares in 1238; first vines in 1792; M. Richier from 1841; 200 to 250 tonneaux in 1868