Château Lanessan

The château

Jean Delbos, a Bordeaux wine merchant, bought the property in 1793, when it had 24 hectares of vines. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists Lanessan under Mme Delbos that year. In 1855, the year of the classification, Armand d’Armailhacq, a Pauillac grower whose De la culture des vignes, la vinification et les vins dans le Médoc came out that year, called it the best growth of its commune, selling almost as dear as the 5th growths, and described its vat house, with crushers fixed on the vats and a revolving crane lifting the grapes straight from the carts. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, placed it among the crus bourgeois supérieurs from 1874, under André Delbos, on an estate of 277 hectares with 47 of vines. The architect Henri Duphot finished the present château, neoclassical with Tudor touches, in 1878, together with the winery, and in 1884 Lanessan won the ministerial gold medal of the Société d’Agriculture de la Gironde for the best-kept vineyard in the department.

In 1907 Marie-Louise Delbos, Jean Delbos’s granddaughter, married Étienne Bouteiller, and from 1960 their son Jean Bouteiller took the vineyard to 80 hectares, adding Château de Sainte Gemme and Lachesnaye. In 2009 the Bouteillers stepped back from the running of the estate and handed it to Paz Espejo, an enologist from Madrid, who stayed until 2020. On October 19, 2022 Treasury Wine Estates, the owner of Penfolds, completed its purchase of the majority: 390 hectares of land with 80 hectares of Haut-Médoc vines, Château Lanessan and Château Lachesnaye, built in 1883 to plans by Louis-Michel Garros. After more than 2 centuries in the same family, Lanessan now belongs to the group behind Penfolds.

The vineyard borders Saint-Julien, on rises of deep Garonne gravel 21 meters above the river. Château Lanessan comes from 32 hectares of vines, 30 years old on average, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot, picked by machine, sorted optically and fermented in coated concrete tanks; Éric Boissenot has advised since 2004. Les Calèches de Lanessan, the second wine, dates from 1999, and Château de Sainte Gemme is the third. The estate holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) certification at level 3, and it opens its stables and a horse museum to visitors.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Cussac-Fort-Médoc

Classification

No classification

Owner

Treasury Wine Estates, majority owner since October 19, 2022; the Delbos and Bouteiller families from 1793

Consultant

Éric Boissenot, since 2004

Vineyard

80 hectares of vines on 390 of land; Château Lanessan from 32

Soil

Deep Garonne gravel Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Wines

Château Lanessan; Les Calèches de Lanessan, since 1999; Château de Sainte Gemme

In history

Almost as dear as the 5th growths in 1855; a gold medal for the best-kept vineyard of the Gironde in 1884