Château La Conseillante

The château

Catherine Conseillan, a Libourne merchant, bought the estate in the 18th century and gave it her name, and the vineyard reached 12 hectares under her. When Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, printed it in 1868, it was still under Princeteau Leperche and sat among the bourgeois and first artisan growths, because Pomerol had no tier of first growths of its own yet. The brothers Louis and Nicolas Nicolas bought it in 1871, and the edition of 1874 is the first with a Nicolas as proprietor and the first to call it a first growth of Pomerol, at 18 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). Louis Nicolas gave the wine its look, the label with cut-off corners and a silver frame and the violet capsule, both from about 1880, and in 1900 he co-founded the Syndicat Viticole de Pomerol and became its first president. By 1893 the guide was praising 12 hectares on the best part of the plateau, above all for the age of their vines, and recording that phylloxera had been felt there since 1875. The fifth generation, Bertrand and Jean-Valmy Nicolas, are joint general managers today.

The vineyard is 11.79 hectares in 16 plots on the boundary with Saint-Émilion: 60% gray clay to the northeast and 40% sandy gravel to the southwest, with iron oxide beneath. The vines are 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc at about 7,000 a hectare, the oldest plots planted in 1958. Marielle Cazaux has been managing director and winemaker since 2015, and Michel Rolland consulted here until his death in March 2026. A vat room of 2012 holds 22 concrete vats, enough to ferment plot by plot, and the wine ages some 16 months, 70% in new barrels, 27% in second-fill and 3% in amphorae. Duo de Conseillante, the second wine, dates from 2007; the estate makes 3,500 to 4,500 cases a year.

La Conseillante has always played its own game in Pomerol, on finesse rather than power. The 1999, which I tasted in November 2025, showed the house style with age: lifted aromatics, graceful Merlot fruit and the silky texture that made so many collectors fall for Pomerol, now with truffle and violets. A wine that whispers rather than shouts. Marielle Cazaux keeps the line with hard choices; in April 2025 she walked me through the 2024, where repeated sorting brought yields very low, and I think it worked.

At a glance

Appellation

Pomerol

Commune

Pomerol, on the boundary with Saint-Émilion

Classification

Michelin Guide, 3 grapes (2026)

Owners

The Nicolas family, since 1871

Direction

Bertrand and Jean-Valmy Nicolas, joint general managers; Marielle Cazaux, managing director and winemaker, since 2015

Consultant

Michel Rolland, until his death in March 2026

Vineyard

11.79 hectares in 16 plots; about 7,000 vines a hectare; oldest plots from 1958

Soil

60% gray clay, 40% sandy gravel, iron oxide beneath Terroir of Pomerol →

Grapes

Merlot 80%, Cabernet Franc 20%

Cellar

22 concrete vats since 2012, plot by plot; about 16 months, 70% new barrels, 27% second-fill, 3% amphorae

Production

3,500 to 4,500 cases a year

Wines

Château La Conseillante; Duo de Conseillante, since 2007

The house

The label with cut-off corners and silver frame, and the violet capsule, from about 1880

In history

Under Princeteau Leperche in 1868; a first growth of Pomerol under the Nicolas family from 1874, at 18 tonneaux