Château Gazin

The château

Gazin was a hamlet in the 18th century, and it probably stands where the Hospital of Pomeyrols stood, built by knights to shelter the pilgrims walking to Santiago de Compostela. The second wine, L’Hospitalet de Gazin, is named for it, and the label carries the cross of the Order of Malta. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, listed it in 1868 as Rouget et Gazin, the 2 estates then held together under Fabre, and in 1874 put the pair in the first class of Pomerol at 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). By 1886 Gazin stood on its own, recently bought by the wine merchant Léon Quenedey, with gold medals from Paris in 1878, Bordeaux in 1882, Amsterdam in 1883, London in 1884 and Antwerp in 1885; by 1897 he was making 80 tonneaux.

Louis Soualle bought the estate next. In 1922 it had 31 hectares, 27 of them in vines, among Petrus, Vieux Château Certan, La Conseillante and L’Évangile, on clay and gravel over the crasse de fer, with presses that ran on rails and a vat house fitted out in the modern way. His descendants, the de Bailliencourt family, run it still: Laure, Christophe, Inès and Nicolas de Bailliencourt are the 5th generation of the family to own vines. The name they carry, dit Courcol, goes back to 1214, when King Philippe-Auguste praised the deeds of one of their ancestors at the battle of Bouvines and called him court col, short neck. In 1969 the family sold 5.5 hectares to its neighbor Petrus.

The vineyard is 26 hectares in one piece on the high terrace, on Günz gravel over blue and green clays that carry iron oxides. It is planted 90% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Cabernet Franc, at 5,500 to 7,000 vines a hectare, and the vines are 35 years old. The farming is the old kind: plowing, organic fertilizer, as few sprays as possible. Pickers go through plot by plot as each one ripens and sort as they pick, and the fruit is sorted 2 times more. It ferments by variety and by plot in small concrete vats, macerates for 2 to 3 weeks and spends 18 months in oak, 50% of the barrels new. Of the wine, 86% leaves France.

The 1989, a vintage that had mixed reviews on release, was one of the finest bottles of an evening I spent with older Bordeaux in August 2024: depth, concentration and a complexity that kept drawing me back, with tertiary flavors, tannin and acidity in balance. It is exactly what a mature Pomerol should be. L’Hospitalet de Gazin 2019, the second wine, which I tasted in March 2025, was vibrant, fruit-forward and approachable.

At a glance

Appellation

Pomerol

Classification

No classification

Owners

The de Bailliencourt dit Courcol family, heirs of Louis Soualle

Vineyard

26 hectares in one piece on the high terrace, beside L’Évangile and Petrus; 5,500 to 7,000 vines a hectare; vines 35 years old

Soil

Günz gravel over blue and green clay with iron oxides Terroir of Pomerol →

Grapes

Merlot 90%, Cabernet Sauvignon 7%, Cabernet Franc 3%

Farming

Plowing, organic fertilizer, as few sprays as possible

Cellar

Picked by hand and sorted 3 times; small concrete vats by variety and plot; 18 months in oak, 50% new

Wines

Château Gazin; L’Hospitalet de Gazin

In history

Rouget et Gazin, 50 tonneaux in 1874; Léon Quenedey, 80 tonneaux in 1897; sold 5.5 hectares to Petrus in 1969