Château Dubignon

The estate

Before 1855 the name was everywhere in Margaux, and usually more than once. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, printed a Dubignon-Talbot at Margaux making 12 to 15 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels); his edition of 1845 had 2 Dubignons in the commune, J.-M. and Philippe, and another at Labarde, with the wine selling at 900 francs the tonneau in 1833 and again in 1839. Charles Cocks, in 1850, placed 2 of them among the fourth growths, Philippe at 30 tonneaux and Marcelin at 25. Franck’s edition of 1853 was the last of these books to carry a Dubignon as a classed growth of Margaux, and in 1855 the brokers named it among the Third Growths.

Then the vines went. By 1867 M. Fourcade, who owned Malescot in the same class, had Dubignon as well, and he folded its parcels into Malescot. Alfred Danflou, in his Grands crus bordelais of 1867, still counted 5 Third Growths at Margaux with Dubignon among them; the next year the directory of Cocks and Édouard Féret, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, printed 4 at Margaux and 13 Thirds in all, in a table it said followed the brokers’ list word for word. No decree and no vote removed Dubignon, and the rank of 1855 was never withdrawn: the name simply stopped being set in type. The list of today has 14 Third Growths.

What survived was a memory. From 1874 the directory mentions Dubignon only as a former owner, in a note on Malescot Saint-Exupéry: its 26 prix-faits, 20 on the 2 great slopes of Margaux and 6 at Cantenac, had all at one time been part of M. Dubignon’s estate. The name surfaced once more as Dubignon-Talbot, sold in 1904, and in 1922 the directory filed it among the bourgeois growths as a former Third, making 8 tonneaux.

At a glance

Appellation

Margaux

Classification

Troisième Cru Classé 1855; out of print from 1868, never withdrawn

Last owners

M. Fourcade, of Malescot, by 1867

In history

2 Dubignons at Margaux in 1845; a Dubignon-Talbot among the bourgeois growths in 1922, 8 tonneaux

Sources: Bordeaux Reviews, Case File 03 (Danflou, Cocks et Féret, d’Armailhacq) · Conseil des Grands Crus Classés en 1855, the classification