Château d’Aiguilhe

The château

Aiguilhe was the heart of a fortified farm, and the château goes back to the 13th century. The Albret family held it, then the Leberthons, who gave several members to the Parlement de Bordeaux and, on the eve of the Revolution, sold it to Étienne Martineau before they emigrated. Martineau made it a farm of 400 hectares in one block, and his family kept it until 1920. The trade books followed it closely in those years: Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, counted the Château d’Aiguille, as they often spelled it, among the few important crus of Saint-Philippe from 1868, at 150 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) from 1874, and in 1893 placed it among the finest red vineyards of the canton, planted in quarters of Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, winner of the cantonal prize, a silver medal, in 1888, and sold mainly to Belgium, Holland and Germany. The great estate was already coming apart; by 1908 the 14 hectares of vines of the Cru de Bonnechère had been carved out of it.

Stephan von Neipperg, of Canon La Gaffelière and La Mondotte, bought it at the end of 1998. The estate covers 140 hectares, 90 of them vines, on a clay and limestone plateau facing south, where a thin topsoil of clay-limestone and clay-silt lies over limestone. The vineyard is 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc, 28 years old on average. The grapes ferment 25 to 30 days in temperature-controlled wooden and concrete vats, with pneumatic punching down, and the wine ages 15 to 18 months, up to 50% of it in new barrels. Seigneurs d’Aiguilhe is the second wine, and since 2015 there has been a white, Le Blanc d’Aiguilhe, 100% Sauvignon Blanc.

At a glance

Appellation

Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux

Commune

Saint-Philippe-d’Aiguilhe

Classification

No classification

Owner

Vignobles Comtes von Neipperg, since the end of 1998

Vineyard

140 hectares, 90 of vines; vines 28 years old on average

Soil

Clay-limestone and clay-silt over limestone, on a plateau facing south Terroir of Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux →

Grapes

Merlot 80%, Cabernet Franc 20%

Cellar

Wooden and concrete vats, 25 to 30 days; 15 to 18 months, up to 50% new oak

Wines

Château d’Aiguilhe; Seigneurs d’Aiguilhe; Le Blanc d’Aiguilhe, since 2015

The house

Also Canon La Gaffelière and La Mondotte

In history

A farm of 400 hectares under the Martineau family until 1920; 150 tonneaux from 1874; a silver medal in 1888