Château de France

The château

Château de France has a long paper trail. In 1648 the laborer Morseau Dubasque bought the plots that André Dejean had held; at the end of the 17th century the procureur Philippe Decoud built a master’s house, and in the 18th Taffard, a councillor of the Parlement of Guyenne, developed the vineyard. Jean-Henri Lacoste, a fabric merchant, bought the property of 25 hectares in 1862 and kept it 32 years. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list the Château-de-France under his name from 1868 to 1893, then under Dr Goizet and, in 1922, under Villigoux, at 10 to 25 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). Lacoste won a bronze medal at Paris in 1878, and in 1886 the guide named the estate, with Château Margaux, as a source of the fine vines planted in a vineyard at the Landes des Jacquets.

From 1920 to about 1975 the estate kept somewhat apart from the Bordeaux wine world. Bernard Thomassin took it over in 1971, Arnaud Thomassin runs it today, and the Rolland laboratory has advised it since 1996. The vineyard lies on the lieu-dit Ferbos, and 1 plot, well named Coquillat, is full of fossils 19 million years old. The estate belongs to the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux.

Of the 40 hectares, 36 are red, 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Merlot, and 4 are white, 80% Sauvignon and 20% Sémillon, planted at 6,950 vines a hectare and pruned double and single Guyot. Spraying is measured and relies on biocontrol; the estate has followed the Bordeaux wine environmental management system since September 2016 and gained Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) in 2018. The grapes are picked by hand, with yields held to 45 hectoliters a hectare. The red ferments 7 to 10 days, macerates 3 to 4 weeks and ages 12 to 14 months in barrel, 30% new and 70% of 1 wine; the white ferments 7 to 10 days in barrel, 40% new, and ages 8 to 9 months, its lees stirred every week. Château Coquillas, red and white, and Le Bec en Sabot, a red, complete the range.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Commune

Léognan, on the lieu-dit Ferbos

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Thomassin family, since 1971

Direction

Arnaud Thomassin

Consultant

The Rolland laboratory, since 1996

Vineyard

40 hectares, 36 red and 4 white; 6,950 vines a hectare

Grapes

Red: Cabernet Sauvignon 55%, Merlot 45%. White: Sauvignon 80%, Sémillon 20%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, since 2018

Cellar

Picked by hand; red, 12 to 14 months in barrel, 30% new; white, fermented in barrel, 40% new, 8 to 9 months on its lees

Wines

Château de France, red and white; Château Coquillas; Le Bec en Sabot

In history

Château-de-France under H. Lacoste, 1868 to 1893; a bronze medal at Paris in 1878