Château Haut-Bergey

The château

Haut-Bergey began in the 15th century, when the lords of La Louvière and Olivier joined lands into a new fief, the mayne de Ponteil. Royal counselors and Bordeaux merchants held it after them, and the present manor went up in the middle of the 19th century. The name came with a purchase, part of the neighboring Bergey estate, where from 1874 the books record only a small growth under the Ferrié-Destang family. Château Haut-Bergey itself first appears in 1899, in the errata of the English edition of Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, under Vergne and his sons, at 12 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels); Édouard Féret’s Les vins des Graves rouges et blancs of 1908 gives 15. Vines came back to the property only in 1957.

Sylviane Garcin bought it in 1991. She rebuilt the cellars, stopped herbicides that same year and enlarged the vineyard over about 20 years, with Michel Rolland advising until the middle of the 2000s; in 1996 she added the neighboring Château Branon, worked by the same team. Paul Garcin joined in 2007 and has run the estate since 2014. He took the whole vineyard to organic and biodynamic farming in 2015, certified AB and Demeter in 2018; in 2021 the estate earned Biodyvin and left Demeter for it.

The vines lie in 6 blocks on gravel rises shaped by the old bed of the Eau Blanche, 20 years old on average, with some parcels of 60. From the 2025 vintage the estate gave more of its vineyard to white: the red is 40% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Cabernet Franc; the white, 90% Sauvignon Blanc and 10% Sémillon. The cellar works parcel by parcel and raises the wines in large barrels chosen across France.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Garcin family, since 1991

Direction

Paul Garcin, since 2014

Vineyard

6 blocks; vines 20 years old on average, some of 60

Soil

Gravel rises of the old bed of the Eau Blanche Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Grapes

Red, from 2025: Merlot 40%, Cabernet Sauvignon 30%, Cabernet Franc 30%. White: Sauvignon Blanc 90%, Sémillon 10%

Farming

Organic and biodynamic since 2015: AB, 2018; Demeter, 2018 to 2021; Biodyvin since 2021

Cellar

Parcel by parcel; large barrels

The house

Also Château Branon, Pessac-Léognan, since 1996

In history

Château Haut-Bergey under Vergne and his sons from 1899, at 12 tonneaux