Château La Croizille

The château

La Croizille is a single amphitheater sculpted in the rock on the slopes of the clay and limestone plateau, between Château Tertre Rotebœuf and Château Troplong Mondot, looking down over Saint-Laurent-des-Combes from 30 to 70 meters up; the curve of the land gives it several soils and several exposures inside 4.45 hectares. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, knew it only as a small holding of the commune: Laforest at 12 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) in 1883, then Larquey, of Castillon, at 15 and later 20 tonneaux from 1897 to 1922, never with a line of description.

The turn came in 1996, when Jacques De Schepper, a Belgian wine merchant who already owned Château Tour Baladoz next door and Château Haut Breton Larigaudière in Margaux, bought it. The vineyard was restructured; in 2012 he and his nephew Olivier finished a new cellar, half buried and dug into the limestone; and from 2015 his daughter Hélène opened the estate to visitors. In September 2022 La Croizille became a Grand Cru Classé for the first time, in the same list as Tour Baladoz: 2 estates of one family, classified together.

The 4.45 hectares lie in one piece, planted 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon. The grapes are sorted 2 times, by hand and by optical sorter, and reach small temperature-controlled vats by gravity; the wine spends 18 to 24 months in French oak, each barrel turned on its own rack. Les Terrasses de La Croizille is the second wine.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

At Baladoz, on the slopes above Saint-Laurent-des-Combes

Classification

Grand Cru Classé in 2022, the first time

Owners

The De Schepper family, since 1996

Vineyard

4.45 hectares in one piece, a natural amphitheater cut into the rock, 30 to 70 meters up

Soil

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

Grapes

Merlot 80%, Cabernet Sauvignon 20%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms), level 3, since 2017; ISO 14001

Cellar

Sorted 2 times, by hand and by optical sorter; gravity; small vats; 18 to 24 months in French oak

Wines

Château La Croizille; Les Terrasses de La Croizille