Château Le Bourdieu Vertheuil

The château

Le Bourdieu Vertheuil lies at Vertheuil, where an abbey was built from the 11th century and its monks cleared the woods and planted vines. The trade books take up the story in the 19th century. Charles Cocks, in Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins of 1850, lists Le Bourdieu under Blanchard jeune at 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and in 1855 Armand d’Armailhacq, a Pauillac grower who published a book on the vines and wines of the Médoc that year, ranks Blanchard’s Le Bourdieu with Picourneau and L’Abbaye, the 2 best wines of the commune, which sold about as well as the best of Cissac. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it among the crus bourgeois (a Médoc classification) of Vertheuil under Blanchard jeune from 1868, at 40 tonneaux in 1874, and under the heirs of Chéri Blanchard in 1886 and 1893; it had passed to Marquis-Sébie by 1898, at 30 tonneaux, and in 1922 belonged to the widow Coucharrière.

It became a Cru Bourgeois in 1936. In 1943 Ernest Barbe brought together Le Bourdieu Vertheuil, Château Victoria and the vineyard of Château Picourneau, which had been ranked beside it in 1855, and since the Richard family bought them in 1989 they have been run by a single team. The family, in wine since 1892, groups its properties as Domaines Richard, among them Château La Nerthe at Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

The vineyard is planted mainly to Merlot, with a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot, on clay and limestone over a stony base, with limestone rock at only 50 centimeters. It has been farmed under Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 since 2019, and Éric Boissenot has followed the winemaking and aging since 2014. The parcels are fermented separately; the 2023, 55% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 5% Petit Verdot, was fermented at 24 to 26°C with 3 to 4 weeks on the skins, its free-run wine made its malolactic fermentation in tank, and it spent 12 months in French oak barrels, 37% of them new. It was a Cru Bourgeois in the classifications of 2020 and 2025.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Vertheuil

Classification

Cru Bourgeois from 1936; in the classifications of 2020 and 2025

Owners

The Richard family, since 1989

Enologist

Éric Boissenot, since 2014

Soil

Clay and limestone over a stony base; limestone rock at 50 centimeters Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

The 2023: Merlot 55%, Cabernet Sauvignon 40%, Petit Verdot 5%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2019

Cellar

Parcel by parcel; the 2023: 12 months in French oak barrels, 37% new

Wines

Château Le Bourdieu Vertheuil

The house

Domaines Richard: also Château Victoria, Haut-Médoc, and Château La Nerthe, Châteauneuf-du-Pape

In history

Ranked with the 2 best wines of Vertheuil in 1855