Château

Château du Cartillon

shah-TOH dew kar-tee-YOHN
How to read this

Capitals mark the stressed syllable. “ew” is “ee” said with rounded lips. “ohn” is a nasal vowel: say it through the nose, with no n. The French r comes from the back of the throat. The recording is the reference.

55 hectares at Lamarque whose land runs up against Poujeaux, Maucaillou and Chasse-Spleen, owned in 1850 by a future mayor of Bordeaux and a cru bourgeois supérieur as early as 1893.

Appellation
Haut-Médoc
Classification
Cru Bourgeois Supérieur

The château

Cartillon lies at Lamarque, midway between Margaux and Saint-Julien on the road of the châteaux, and its land runs up against 3 estates of Moulis: Poujeaux, Maucaillou and Chasse-Spleen. In 1850 it belonged to Alexandre de Bethmann, later mayor of Bordeaux, from 1867 to 1870, and Charles Cocks, the Englishman whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins became, with Édouard Féret, the guide of the Bordeaux trade, listed Le Cartillon under his name at 90 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). From 1868 it belonged to Félix Clauzel. In 1874 the guide described an estate of 64 hectares with 33 of vines on gravel, making one of the best wines of Lamarque, and from 1893 it printed Cartillon among the crus bourgeois supérieurs, under the Clauzel heirs, at 120 tonneaux.

Since 2007 the estate has been run by the Société Fermière des Grands Crus de France, part of the Grands Chais de France group, whose Bordeaux arm is Crus et Domaines de France. The vineyard is 55 hectares of sandy gravel and sandy clay, planted 55% Merlot, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Petit Verdot at 6,666 vines a hectare, and certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3; the oldest vines are grassed and the youngest plowed. The wine ages about 12 months in 225-liter barrels, about half of them new. Cartillon was a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in the classification of 2020 and again in 2025.

At a glance

Appellation
Haut-Médoc
Commune
Lamarque
Classification
Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, 2020 and 2025
Operator
Société Fermière des Grands Crus de France, Grands Chais de France, since 2007
Vineyard
55 hectares; 6,666 vines a hectare
Soil
Sandy gravel and sandy clay Terroir of Haut-Médoc →
Grapes
Merlot 55%, Cabernet Sauvignon 25%, Petit Verdot 20%
Farming
Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3
Cellar
About 12 months in barrel, about 50% new
The house
Also Château La Fortune, Margaux
In history
Alexandre de Bethmann, 90 tonneaux, in 1850; a cru bourgeois supérieur of 120 tonneaux from 1893

Sources

Institutions
Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc: Château du Cartillon, the classification of 2025, the classification of 2020

Revised October 13, 2026. How I choose sources

The record

Château du Cartillon is a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, in the Haut-Médoc appellation.

The 1855 Classification was published on April 18, 1855, drawn up by the brokers of the Bordeaux exchange for the Exposition Universelle in Paris.

Source: Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855

Private

By invitation only.

Houses in its story

On from here

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