Château Haut-Sarpe

The château

Haut-Sarpe is already on the map of Guyenne that Pierre de Belleyme drew in the 18th century, and its owners were people of consequence. The count Jacques Amédée de Carles, a lieutenant general in the armies of Louis XVI, held it; so did the count Jacques d’Allard, mayor of Saint-Émilion. The baron du Foussat de Bogeron gathered the vineyards of Sarpe, Pelletan and Badette by inheritance and purchase from the d’Allards, the counts de Carles and the Ducarpes, rebuilt the château and took a gold medal at the Paris exhibition of 1867. In 1908 Édouard Féret, in his volume on Saint-Émilion, was the first to print the name Château Haut-Sarpe, a first growth of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes at 100 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), with gold medals from every exhibition, the last at Liège in 1905. In 1922, under Fernand Gizard, it made the same 100, and the guide Féret shared with Charles Cocks, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, noted that Haut-Sarpe and Sarpe-Pelletan had always been counted as first growths.

The Joseph Janoueix family, négociants (merchants who buy from the châteaux and sell on) of Libourne, bought Haut-Sarpe in the 1930s, and Jean-François Janoueix owns it today. The revision of 1969 made it a Grand Cru Classé, and the list of September 2022 confirmed it. The house, with a central pavilion inspired by the Petit Trianon at Versailles, looks over the vines from behind an iron gate flanked by 2 lions, in a park of 3 hectares with a windmill of the 18th century, restored.

The 21.5 hectares run along the hill and onto the edge of the limestone plateau of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes, on clay and limestone, planted 70% Merlot and 30% Cabernet Franc. The grapes are picked and sorted by hand, and the wine spends 18 months in new oak. Production is still counted the old way, at 100 tonneaux, or 10,000 cases, the same figure the guides gave in 1908.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes, on the slope and the edge of the limestone plateau

Classification

Grand Cru Classé, 1969 to 2022

Owners

The Joseph Janoueix family, since the 1930s; Jean-François Janoueix

Vineyard

21.5 hectares

Soil

Clay and limestone on the slope and the edge of the plateau Terroir of Saint-Émilion →

Grapes

Merlot 70%, Cabernet Franc 30%

Cellar

Picked and sorted by hand; 18 months in new oak

Production

100 tonneaux, or 10,000 cases

Wines

Château Haut-Sarpe

The house

A central pavilion after the Petit Trianon; a park of 3 hectares with a windmill of the 18th century

In history

A first growth of Saint-Christophe-des-Bardes at 100 tonneaux in 1908 and 1922