Château Le Thil Comte Clary

The estate

The château was built early in the 18th century and remodeled in the 19th by Jeanne Clary, granddaughter of Nicolas Clary, whose sister married Marshal Bernadotte, later king of Sweden and Norway. Louis-Ferdinand Fischer designed its park, now listed, in the same century. The old books print the estate as Le Thil et le Désert: Le Thil the domain and its park, Le Désert the vineyard. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it in 1874 under G. Duffour, at 25 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), the 2 domains together covering about 150 hectares, and Édouard Féret’s Les vins des Graves of 1908 places Le Désert among the first growths of Léognan under the comte Duffour de Raymond, with 16 hectares of vines giving about 30 tonneaux of red and 10 of white, a great gold medal of the Société d’Agriculture de la Gironde in 1903, and gold medals at the Paris exhibitions of 1889 and 1900 and at Liège in 1905.

In the summer of 2012 Château Smith Haut Lafitte, 1 kilometer away, bought the 11.6 hectares, 8.6 of red and 3 of white, and its team farms them; the red is led by Merlot. The Cathiard family, owners of Smith Haut Lafitte, has made the house a place to receive: Le Pavillon du Château Le Thil is a reception hall, and La Chartreuse du Château Le Thil has 11 guest rooms, run with Les Sources de Caudalie.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Cathiard family, of Château Smith Haut Lafitte, since 2012

Operator

The Smith Haut Lafitte team

Vineyard

11.6 hectares, 8.6 red and 3 white

Grapes

A red led by Merlot

The house

Early 18th century, remodeled by Jeanne Clary; a park by Louis-Ferdinand Fischer; 11 guest rooms

In history

Le Thil et le Désert under the Duffour family, 1874 to 1908; 16 hectares of vines in 1908

Sources: Château Le Thil · Château Smith Haut Lafitte, our other châteaux · Pessac-Léognan, Château Le Thil Comte Clary