Château Lamothe-Cissac

The château

Lamothe was a known name in Cissac long before the Fabres. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists it under Dumousseau in 1853, at 40 to 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, carried it as a cru bourgeois (a Médoc classification), under L. d’Elbauve in 1883 and under A. Boulant from 1901. Their notice of 1922 describes 75 hectares, 35 of them in vines, on rises of sandy gravel, planted in 3 equal parts of Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet, with wines often paid the price of the crus bourgeois supérieurs. Then the wine stopped. When Gabriel Fabre, back from Morocco, bought the estate in 1964, there was nothing to harvest; he replanted from April 1967, on a rise of clay and limestone. Vincent Fabre has run the estate since 1991, the family has lived by the vine for 4 generations, and the wine is sold directly, without merchants. Éric Boissenot and his team consult.

The 33 hectares lie on clay and limestone and on clay gravel over deep gravel, planted 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 7% Petit Verdot, with vines 30 years old on average. The rows are grassed, the vines deleafed and green-harvested, and since 2020 a flock of Landes sheep has grazed between them; the estate holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) certification. The grapes macerate 4 to 5 weeks, with 2 pump-overs a day, and the wine ages about 12 months in oak barrels. Lamothe-Cissac was a Cru Bourgeois in the classification of 2020 and is not in that of 2025. Beside Château Lamothe-Cissac the family makes Vieilles Vignes de Lamothe-Cissac, from vines over 70 years old, and Héritage de Lamothe 1876, from selected plots, and it also owns Château Bellevue de Tayac, in Margaux.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Cissac-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois in 2020; not in the list of 2025

Owners

The Fabre family, since 1964

Direction

Vincent Fabre, since 1991

Consultant

Éric Boissenot

Vineyard

33 hectares, replanted from 1967; vines 30 years old on average

Soil

Clay and limestone, and clay gravel over deep gravel Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 58%, Merlot 35%, Petit Verdot 7%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale; sheep in the vineyard since 2020

Cellar

4 to 5 weeks of maceration; about 12 months in oak barrels

Wines

Château Lamothe-Cissac; Vieilles Vignes de Lamothe-Cissac; Héritage de Lamothe 1876

The house

Also Château Bellevue de Tayac, Margaux

In history

Under Dumousseau in 1853; a cru bourgeois in 1883; 35 hectares of vines in 1922