Château d’Arsac

The château

Arsac was a seigneury from the 12th century, under the lords of Arsac, and Charles Cocks, whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins appeared in 1850, already called it one of the oldest of the Médoc. In the 16th century it passed to Thomas de Montaigne, brother of the essayist Michel, by his marriage to Jacquette d’Arsac, daughter of the last lord. The wine was well known in the 19th century. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, listed it under the heirs of Rubichon in 1845, at 30 to 40 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels); Cocks ranked it a cru bourgeois supérieur in 1874, under Hostein-Fatou, on an estate of 267 hectares; and by 1893, under E. Dubosc, the estate ran to about 485 hectares, with 180 in vines and heading for 225. It had belonged to the Comtes de Ségur, whose name was still the mark of the wine, and its Le Monteil, a growth created in the 1880s, often sold at the price of the third growths.

Then came the decline after phylloxera. Philippe Raoux took the estate on in 1986 and brought it back. It now makes wine under 3 appellations: 54 hectares of Margaux, 32 of Haut-Médoc and 4 of Sauvignon Blanc in the Bordeaux appellation. The vines are pruned, disbudded, leaf-stripped and green-harvested, picked by hand and by machine and strictly sorted; Éric Boissenot consults. Château d’Arsac, the Margaux, is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, about 200,000 bottles a year, and Kid d’Arsac is a further Margaux. Château Le Monteil d’Arsac, the Haut-Médoc, runs to about 15,000 bottles; the 2022 is 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. The white, Cuvée Céline, is all Sauvignon Blanc, and there is a rosé, Cuvée Scooter, and Les Sarments d’Arsac.

Raoux also brought contemporary art into the vines. A new piece joins the collection every year, and more than 40 works now stand among the vines, the gardens and the buildings. D’Arsac became a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel on January 1, 2020, and the classification of February 2025 kept it there, 1 of 14.

At a glance

Appellation

Margaux; also Haut-Médoc and Bordeaux Terroir of Margaux →

Commune

Arsac

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, 2020 and 2025, 1 of 14

Revived by

Philippe Raoux, from 1986

Consultant

Éric Boissenot

Vineyard

54 hectares of Margaux; 32 hectares of Haut-Médoc; 4 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc in the Bordeaux appellation

Grapes

Château d’Arsac: Cabernet Sauvignon 60%, Merlot 40%

Production

About 200,000 bottles of Château d’Arsac and 15,000 of Le Monteil d’Arsac

Wines

Château d’Arsac; Kid d’Arsac, Margaux; Château Le Monteil d’Arsac, Haut-Médoc; Cuvée Céline, white; Cuvée Scooter, rosé; Les Sarments d’Arsac

The collection

Contemporary sculpture, a new work every year, more than 40 in all

In history

The heirs of Rubichon in 1845; cru bourgeois supérieur in 1874; E. Dubosc, 180 hectares of vines, in 1893