Château Haut-Bailly

The château

Firmin Le Bailly and Nicolas de Leuvarde, 2 Parisian bankers, bought the property in 1630 and left it their name; Thomas Barton, an Irishman, took it over in 1736. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, printed it in 1845 and 1853 as plain Bailly, under Ricard, at 15 to 20 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). The man who made it was Alcide Bellot des Minières, who bought it in 1872, built the stone château and replanted the vineyard in fixed fractions, 7/12 Cabernet Sauvignon and 1/12 each of Malbec, Merlot, Verdot, Carmenère and Cabernet Franc. By 1886 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, gave Haut-Bailly a class of its own, cru exceptionnel, at 80 tonneaux, with 4,000 francs paid for the 1884 harvest. People said of the wine, they reported, that it was “a full-bodied Chambertin doubled with a Château Margaux of a great year”, and the country called its owner the Roi des vignerons, the king of the winegrowers.

Daniel Sanders, a Belgian wine merchant, bought the estate in 1955, and Robert G. Wilmers, the American banker who ran M&T Bank at Buffalo, in 1998; Wilmers died in 2017, and his family holds it. Véronique Sanders has run the estate since 1998, and Gabriel Vialard is technical director. Haut-Bailly was classified in 1953 for its red wine, and the list took its present form with the decree of February 16, 1959.

The 30 hectares of vines lie on gravel, sand and clay over faluns, the fossil shell beds of Léognan, planted 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 34% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. Below the windows of the château, 4 hectares planted in 1905 have never been pulled up: 6 varieties in the old fractions, 7/12 Cabernet Sauvignon and 1/12 each of Cabernet Franc, Carmenère, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot, vines now more than 120 years old. Picking is by hand, the soil is worked and the vines are protected by integrated methods. The cellar vinifies 54 parcels apart, under a vault of 8.80 meters that carries a suspended garden of 2,400 square meters. Haut-Bailly II, made since 1967 and first called La Parde, is the second wine; HB, which carried the estate name until 2018, comes from the youngest vines. The team took over the vineyard of Château Le Pape in 2012, and from 2022 its harvests have gone into Haut-Bailly II.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

Cru Classé de Graves for red, 1953 and 1959; Michelin Guide, 1 grape (2026)

Owners

The Wilmers family, since 1998

Direction

Véronique Sanders, since 1998; Gabriel Vialard, technical director

Vineyard

30 hectares, including 4 planted in 1905

Soil

Gravel, sand and clay over faluns, the fossil shell beds of Léognan Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 60%, Merlot 34%, Cabernet Franc 3%, Petit Verdot 3%

Farming

Hand picking; worked soil; integrated protection

Cellar

54 parcels vinified apart, under a vault that carries a garden of 2,400 square meters

Wines

Château Haut-Bailly; Haut-Bailly II; HB

In history

A cru exceptionnel at 80 tonneaux in 1886, under Alcide Bellot des Minières

Took in

Château Le Pape