Château L’Évangile

The château

Pomerol has never been classified, but the books ranked it anyway, and they put L’Évangile at the top. The estate lies on the southeastern part of the plateau, with Petrus on its northern boundary and Cheval Blanc, over the line in Saint-Émilion, on its southern one. The Léglise family held it in the middle of the 18th century, when the land register of 1741 carries it as Fazilleau; a lawyer named Isambert gave it its present name at the turn of the 19th century. Paul Chaperon bought it in 1862 and built the house that stands there, and Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, printed it among the first growths of Haut-Pomerol from 1868, under his name; the same books put the same Paul Chaperon at Jean-Faure, over the line in Saint-Émilion, in the same years. His heirs, the Ducasse family, kept L’Évangile until 1990, Louis Ducasse from 1957 and Simone Ducasse to the end, and Domaines Barons de Rothschild bought it that year.

The vineyard is 22 hectares in 43 plots on 3 kinds of soil: swelling clays, clay and gravel running to sandy gravel, and sand lower down. It is planted 79% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc and 1% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the estate added land in 2012. There are 2 kilometers of hedges and 5 beehives. Conversion to organic farming began in 2018 and the 2021 was the first certified vintage, which made L’Évangile the first of the Rothschild estates to farm that way; biodynamic trials are under way. The group took B Corp certification in December 2023.

Juliette Couderc has managed the estate since September 2020, Olivier Trégoat, a soil scientist, is technical director, and Charbel Abboud has been cellar master since 2002. The picking is done the way Sauternes is picked, a single hectare divided into as many as 5 sections, each brought in and made separately. In the wet harvest of 2024 that patience met French labor law, which forbids pickers to work more than 6 days in a row: with the grapes at risk of botrytis and no neighbor in Pomerol or Saint-Émilion able to lend a team, it was the pickers of Rieussec, the sister estate in Sauternes, between their dry white and their sweet harvests and expert at spotting botrytis, who brought the crop in. The cellars were finished for the 2005 vintage and are gravity fed, with 20 cement vats of 35 to 81 hectoliters; amphorae have taken part of the aging since 2019, alongside large casks and concrete, and the wine spends 18 months in wood with about 70% of the barrels new. Blason de L’Évangile is the second wine.

Juliette Couderc told me that harvest story in April 2025, and the 2024 is a winner. A year later I tasted the 2025 from barrel, and it confirms the steady line of her years here: highly consistent, with a polish that comes from precision in the vineyard and thought in the cellar. There is less of it, since the crop was down, and it will be sought after.

At a glance

Appellation

Pomerol

Commune

Pomerol, the southeastern plateau, between Petrus and Cheval Blanc

Classification

Michelin Guide, 1 grape (2026)

Owner

Domaines Barons de Rothschild, since 1990

Direction

Juliette Couderc, since September 2020; Olivier Trégoat, technical director; Charbel Abboud, cellar master, since 2002

Vineyard

22 hectares in 43 plots; 2 kilometers of hedges and 5 beehives

Soil

Swelling clays; clay and gravel running to sandy gravel; sand lower down Terroir of Pomerol →

Grapes

Merlot 79%, Cabernet Franc 20%, Cabernet Sauvignon 1%

Farming

Organic, converted from 2018, first certified vintage 2021; biodynamic trials; B Corp for the group from December 2023

Cellar

Picked as in Sauternes, in up to 5 sections a hectare; gravity fed since 2005; 20 cement vats of 35 to 81 hectoliters; amphorae since 2019; 18 months in wood, about 70% new

Wines

Château L’Évangile; Blason de L’Évangile

In history

Fazilleau on the land register of 1741; a first growth of Haut-Pomerol under Paul Chaperon from 1868