Château Latour-Martillac

The château

The tower in the courtyard is what is left of a fort raised in the 12th century by the ancestors of Montesquieu; its stones went into the present château at the end of the 18th century. It was the white that brought the Kressmanns. The dry whites of Martillac had a name: André Jullien, the Paris wine merchant whose Topographie de tous les vignobles connus surveyed the vineyards of the world, placed them in 1832 in the second class of the white wines of France. Edouard Kressmann, newly set up as a négociant (a merchant who buys from the châteaux and sells on), came to the property in 1871 for the white its gravel made, and the vines he grafted in 1884 for his Grave Monopole Dry, a name the soprano Adelina Patti gave it, are standing yet. In 1922 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, still printed the estate as a Château Latour among the growths of Martillac, under Pierre Langlois, at 20 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) of red. Alfred Kressmann bought it in 1930 and renamed it Latour-Martillac, to keep it apart from Château Latour in the Médoc; the 1934 was chosen for the coronation of King George VI.

Jean Kressmann took over in 1954 and carried the vineyard to nearly 30 hectares; his 6 children own the estate today, and Tristan and Loïc Kressmann run it. Latour-Martillac was classified in 1953, for red and for white, and the list took its present form with the decree of February 16, 1959. The 57 hectares now carry 48 of red and 9 of white. The plateau at Martillac is a patchwork of gravel, quartz, Lydian stone, jasper and flint; toward the Garonne it turns to clay and limestone with gravel still on the surface, and that is where the Merlot and the white varieties go. The red, 55% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot, ages 14 months in French oak, 40% of it new; the white, Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, blended 52 and 48 in 2022, ages 15 months on its lees.

Lagrave-Martillac, red from 1986 and white from 1990, is the second wine. The estate also makes Lacroix-Martillac, a rosé, Château Langlet, bought in 1999, and Grapecap 1884, from the plot planted that year. Hedges and hives came in from 2010, the old vines have been plowed by horse since 2014, and the estate took Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 in September 2020.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Martillac

Classification

Cru Classé de Graves for red and white, 1953 and 1959

Owners

The Kressmann family, since 1930: the 6 children of Jean Kressmann

Direction

Tristan and Loïc Kressmann

Vineyard

57 hectares; 48 red and 9 white

Soil

Gravel of quartz, Lydian stone, jasper and flint on the Martillac plateau; clay and limestone under gravel toward the Garonne Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Grapes

Red: Cabernet Sauvignon 55%, Merlot 40%, Petit Verdot 5%; white: Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, 52 and 48 in 2022

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since September 2020; horse plowing in the old vines since 2014; hedges and hives from 2010

Cellar

Red: 14 months in French oak, 40% new; white: 15 months on its lees

Wines

Château Latour-Martillac (red and white); Lagrave-Martillac; Lacroix-Martillac (rosé); Château Langlet; Grapecap 1884

In history

White vines grafted by Edouard Kressmann in 1884, still standing