Château Les Grandes Murailles

The estate

Les Grandes Murailles took its name from the great wall that still stands beside Clos Fourtet, all that remains of a Dominican monastery of the 13th century. The friars had built it outside the town ditch; soldiers pulled it down during the Hundred Years War, and the monks withdrew inside the town walls. The vineyard at its foot was already in the 1st class of the Haut-Saint-Émilion in 1850, at 5 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), when Charles Cocks published Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins. From 1868 it belonged to the Malen family: Édouard Féret, in Les vins de l’arrondissement de Libourne of 1897, ranked it among the 1ers crus of Saint-Émilion under the commandant J. Malen, at 10 tonneaux, a vineyard on a ledge of rock over old quarries, and in 1908 it was Edmond Malen’s, still at 10. Clarets and Sauternes, a guide published in 1920, paired it with Château Baleau under J. Malen and Edmond Malen, and a history of Saint-Émilion published in 1923 called it the Clos des Grandes Murailles, a premier grand cru spread at the foot of the great wall.

In 2013 the Cuvelier family, owners of Clos Fourtet, a Premier Grand Cru Classé, and of Château Poujeaux since 2008, bought both Château Côte de Baleau and Les Grandes Murailles: 2 hectares of clay and limestone planted to Merlot, lying against Clos Fourtet, and at the time a Grand Cru Classé. It was not in the list of September 2022, and from the 2022 harvest its vines went into Clos Fourtet. The wall still stands; the vines now carry the name of Clos Fourtet.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

Saint-Émilion, against Clos Fourtet

Classification

Grand Cru Classé when bought in 2013; not in the list of 2022

Last owners

The Cuvelier family, from 2013

Vineyard

2 hectares; in Clos Fourtet from the 2022 harvest

Ground

Clay and limestone

Grapes

Merlot

The house

Clos Fourtet, Premier Grand Cru Classé; Château Côte de Baleau; Château Poujeaux, Moulis

The name

The last wall of a Dominican monastery of the 13th century, pulled down in the Hundred Years War

In history

The 1st class of the Haut-Saint-Émilion in 1850; a 1er cru of the Malen family, 10 tonneaux, from 1897

Now part of

Clos Fourtet

Sources: Clos Fourtet, Les Grandes Murailles · Clos Fourtet, Les Grandes Murailles, in French · Château Côte de Baleau, the family estates · Conseil des Vins de Saint-Émilion, Château Les Grandes Murailles · Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité, the Saint-Émilion classification of 2022 · La Revue du Vin de France, Les Grandes Murailles is taken into Clos Fourtet