Château La Louvière

The estate

La Louvière, then called La Lobeyra, already existed in 1310, when Aquitaine was under English rule. The vineyard took its present shape between 1510 and 1550, under Pierre de Guilloche and his son Jean. In 1620 a gift passed the estate to the Carthusians of the Chartreuse de la Miséricorde of Bordeaux, and the monks made the wine here until 1791. At the auction that followed, the Bordeaux merchant Jean-Baptiste Mareilhac bought it, and to give his young wife Jeanne-Émilie a country house he had the Parisian architect François Lhôte build the château that stands today, a neoclassical house now classified as a historic monument.

The Mareilhacs made it a model estate. Alfred Mareilhac, mayor of Léognan, rebuilt the vineyard with fine varieties and won the ministerial gold medal of 1869 for the best-kept vineyard in the department. In 1893 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, describe 100 hectares with 37 in vines, springs feeding basins at 40,000 liters a day, ground varied between gravel, silica and limestone and marled from the estate’s own pits, and the grisailles, paintings in shades of gray, of the Flemish painter Lonsing, who spent his last years here. The wines had an honorable mention at London in 1862, medals at Cologne in 1875, Antwerp in 1885 and Brussels in 1888, and a grand gold medal at the Paris exhibition of 1889. Edmond Labasse held the estate in 1908, and Alfred Bertrand-Taquet, another mayor of Léognan, in 1922.

André Lurton bought La Louvière in 1965, and it was how he came to the Graves. He spent 50 years restoring it, and his family, Vignobles André Lurton, owns it still. A new winery, half underground and built to hold 1,000 barrels, opened in 2009.

The estate has 69 hectares of vines, 58 of them red and 11 white. The red grows on deep gravel and is 55% Merlot and 45% Cabernet Sauvignon; it spends 12 months in oak, 40% to 50% of the barrels new, with part of the crop raised in terracotta amphorae. The white grows on gravel mixed with sand, clay or limestone depending on the parcel and is 96% Sauvignon and 4% Sémillon, picked by hand in several passes, fermented in barrels and 600-liter casks, and kept 10 months on its full lees with stirring, 30% of the barrels new. Valérie Lavigne advises on the white and Mikael Laizet on the red. L de La Louvière, red and white, is the second wine, and the estate also makes Les Lions de La Louvière. The red 2008, which I tasted at the château at a lunch for wine professionals and wrote about in October 2025, shows what a cool, classical year gives the reds of the Graves: bright fruit, notes of tobacco and cedar, and fresh lines.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

No classification

Owner

Vignobles André Lurton, since 1965

Consultants

Valérie Lavigne, white; Mikael Laizet, red

Vineyard

69 hectares: 58 red, 11 white

Ground

Deep gravel for the red; gravel with sand, clay or limestone for the white

Grapes

Red: Merlot 55%, Cabernet Sauvignon 45%. White: Sauvignon 96%, Sémillon 4%

Cellar

Red: 12 months in oak, 40% to 50% new, part in terracotta amphorae. White: fermented in barrel and 600-liter casks, 10 months on full lees, 30% new; winery of 2009, half underground

Wines

Château La Louvière; L de La Louvière; Les Lions de La Louvière

The house

Neoclassical, built by the architect François Lhôte for Jean-Baptiste Mareilhac’s young wife, Jeanne-Émilie; a historic monument

In history

The Carthusians, 1620 to 1791; the ministerial gold medal of 1869 for the best-kept vineyard of the department

Sources: Vignobles Famille André Lurton, Château La Louvière · Vignobles Famille André Lurton, the history · Château La Louvière, fiche technique du rouge 2023 · Château La Louvière, fiche technique du blanc 2024 · Syndicat viticole de Pessac-Léognan, Château La Louvière · Guto Assumpção on Instagram, Château La Louvière 2008, October 11, 2025