Château Larrivet Haut-Brion

The château

The estate goes back to 1840, as Château de Canolle and then La Rivette. By 1874 it was Château Haut-Brion Larrivet and belonged to Ernest Laurent, a Bordeaux merchant; it won a silver medal at Paris in 1878, and in 1886 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, described an estate of 127 hectares, 44 of them in vines, on one of the finest gravel rises of Léognan, facing south and east, with wines at the head of the reds of Léognan. In 1893 it passed to the sons of Théodore Conseil, Bordeaux shipowners, with 50 hectares of vines, and it was still with the Conseils in 1922. In 1929 it took its present name, Larrivet Haut-Brion.

M. Guillemaud bought the whole vineyard in 1941 and held it until 1982. In 1987 Philippe and Christine Gervoson bought the estate and enlarged it with new vines; today the family’s generation in charge is 3 sisters, Emilie, Charlotte and Valentine. Charlotte Mignon came as cellar master in 2020 and has been managing director since January 2025, and Stéphane Derenoncourt has consulted, from the vineyard to the cellar, since 2015.

The vines grow on the gravels of Bordeaux, strongly gravelly in a sandy or clayey matrix over limestone. The red is planted 50% Merlot, 45% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Cabernet Franc, the white 85% Sauvignon and 15% Sémillon. Twelve hectares, 17% of the vineyard, are being replanted as the Vignoble du Futur, vines and trees together: 300 paulownias in the rows, 2,000 square meters of flowering strips and more than 20 species of trees, for which the family gives up 10% of production. Malbec comes into the new plantings, held to 5% of the blend. The red of 2022 was fermented plot by plot in small temperature-controlled concrete vats, filled by gravity, with 4 to 5 weeks on the skins, and aged 50% in new barrels, 35% in barrels of 1 wine and 15% in terracotta jars for part of the Merlot. The estate makes 200,000 bottles of red and 50,000 of white, and its second wines are Les Demoiselles de Larrivet Haut-Brion, red and white.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Gervoson family, since 1987

Direction

Charlotte Mignon, managing director since January 2025

Consultant

Stéphane Derenoncourt, since 2015

Vineyard

12 hectares, 17% of the vineyard, replanted with trees among the vines

Soil

Gravel in a sandy or clayey matrix over limestone Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Grapes

Red: Merlot 50%, Cabernet Sauvignon 45%, Cabernet Franc 5%. White: Sauvignon 85%, Sémillon 15%

Cellar

Plot by plot in small concrete vats; the 2022, 50% new barrels, 35% barrels of 1 wine, 15% terracotta jars

Production

200,000 bottles of red, 50,000 of white

Wines

Château Larrivet Haut-Brion, red and white; Les Demoiselles de Larrivet Haut-Brion

In history

Château-Haut-Brion-Larrivet under Ernest Laurent, 127 hectares, in 1886; the Conseil family from 1893