Château d’Arcins

The château

Arcins is old vineyard land: the Castel family trace its vineyard to 1300 and the Knights Templar. By the 19th century it was the largest cru of the commune, at 160 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) in 1850 under Subercazeaux, in the listing of Charles Cocks, the Englishman whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins became, with Édouard Féret, the guide of the Bordeaux trade. In 1855 Charles Saint-Amant, in Le vin de Bordeaux, promenade en Médoc, admired M. Subercazeaux’s fine property along the main road, a cuvier worth taking as a model, and the horses bred on its pastures, often crowned at the Bordeaux racecourse. The marquis de Clermont had it by 1868, at 200 to 250 tonneaux, and in 1886 the guide described a vast estate of meadows, plowland and marsh with 76 hectares of vines on gravel. The baron de Fontenay won a silver medal with it at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889, Dr Badal held it by 1898, and in 1922, under A. Fontanel-Maillan, it was a cru bourgeois supérieur of 160 hectares making 225 tonneaux.

The Castel family bought Arcins in 1971, and in 1981 built a round vat room of 20 temperature-controlled stainless steel vats. The vineyard is 101 hectares in a single block between Margaux and Saint-Julien, at 9,600 vines a hectare, with vines about 30 years old: gravel in the north for Cabernet Sauvignon, more clay in the south for Merlot, where the parcel called Queue de Boeuf lies, near Moulis. The vines are worked parcel by parcel with cover crops matched to each, under Terra Vitis since 2018. The barrel cellar, 100 meters long, holds more than 1,200 French oak barrels from 5 cooperages; the wine ages 12 months, 80% in barrels that have held 1 or 2 wines and 20% in new ones. Château d’Arcins is 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the second wine, Chevalier d’Arcins, carries more Merlot. Lucas Puyo is the régisseur and Antoine Médeville the consulting enologist. Arcins was a Cru Bourgeois in the classifications of 2020 and 2025.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Arcins

Classification

Cru Bourgeois, 2020 and 2025

Owner

The Castel family, since 1971

Direction

Lucas Puyo, régisseur

Enologist

Antoine Médeville

Vineyard

101 hectares in a single block; 9,600 vines a hectare; vines about 30 years old

Soil

Gravel in the north; more clay in the south Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Château d’Arcins: Merlot 50%, Cabernet Sauvignon 50%

Farming

Terra Vitis, since 2018

Cellar

Round vat room of 1981; 12 months in barrel, 20% new

Wines

Château d’Arcins; Chevalier d’Arcins

The house

Castel Châteaux & Grands Crus

In history

The largest cru of Arcins, 160 tonneaux, in 1850; a cru bourgeois supérieur of 225 tonneaux in 1922