Château du Taillan

The château

The Château du Taillan is an 18th-century house in a wooded park of 100 hectares at Le Taillan-Médoc, and the house, its pink marble altarpiece and its vaulted underground cellars are all listed historic monuments. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists it in 1845 under the Marquis de Bryas at 150 to 180 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and a book of 1855, Le vin de Bordeaux: promenade en Médoc, describes the marquis’s château as a model farm where everything was being tried. Les grands crus bordelais, published in 1866, found a half-Gothic manor, once the home of the président Lavie of the Parlement de Bordeaux and now of the Vicomte de Borrelli, making 150 to 200 tonneaux, and counted it among the most striking châteaux of the Médoc for its architecture, its site and its landscape. The commune, which had once grown white wine on the stony soil of Haut-Taillan, by then made only red.

Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, give it to Maurice de Luze in 1886. In 1896 Henri Cruse bought it to make a house and a small vineyard of it, and their edition of 1898 shows him there, with an estate of about 150 hectares and the vines partly replanted. The Cruses kept it for 130 years: his son Jean took over in 1932, and in 1992 the 5 daughters of Henri-François Cruse, the 4th generation, took charge. In 2026 it passed to Laurent Marti, a businessman and president of the rugby club Union Bordeaux Bègles; Tatiana, of the Cruse family, stays on the team.

The vineyard is 24 hectares of Haut-Médoc on gravel and on clay and limestone, its oldest vines planted in 1959 and its youngest in 2016; the 2021 is 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel. The estate has been certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) since July 2018. Its place among the Crus Bourgeois runs the length of their history: in the first list, of 1932, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2003, Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2020, and kept at that rank in February 2025, 1 of 14. Beside the red it makes rosé under the name La Rose du Taillan and a white, Dame Blanche, named for the legend of a princess called Bianca.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Le Taillan-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois in 1932; Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2003; Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, 2020 and 2025, 1 of 14

Owner

Laurent Marti, since 2026; the Cruse family from 1896 to 2026

Vineyard

24 hectares; vines planted from 1959 to 2016

Soil

Gravel, and clay and limestone Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

The 2021: Merlot 85%, Cabernet Sauvignon 15%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, since July 2018

Cellar

Temperature-controlled stainless steel

Wines

Château du Taillan; La Rose du Taillan; Dame Blanche, white

The house

An 18th-century château with a pink marble altarpiece and vaulted underground cellars, all historic monuments; a wooded park of 100 hectares

In history

The Marquis de Bryas, 150 to 180 tonneaux, in 1845