Château Mauvesin Barton

The château

Jean de Foix Grailly acquired Mauvesin in 1457, and at the end of the 15th century it passed to the Rivière family. Théophile Malvezin, whose Histoire du commerce de Bordeaux appeared in 1892, tells how Jacques Blanc, of a family of Bordeaux merchants, married Marguerite de la Rivière in 1600, received with her the small seigneurie of Mauvesin and took its name, founding a line of Le Blanc de Mauvesin who sat as counsellors and presidents of the Parlement de Bordeaux. The Revolution seized the estate as national property, but in 1792 it was sold to Luc Clarcke de Dromantin, a lawyer buying on the family’s behalf, and so it stayed with them. In 1853 the last Marquis of Mauvesin, Lodoïs Le Blanc de Mauvesin, commissioned the present château, in the Louis XIII style.

The Médoc books of his time knew the estate well. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists it under Le Blanc de Mauvesin in 1845; Charles Cocks, in Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins of 1850, gives it 70 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels); and Armand d’Armailhacq, in De la culture des vignes, la vinification et les vins dans le Médoc of 1855, counts the Château de Mauvesin among the bourgeois supérieurs of Moulis, at 40 hectares and 100 tonneaux. By 1874 Cocks and Édouard Féret, in Bordeaux et ses vins, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, describe an estate of 280 hectares in Moulis, Castelnau and Avensan, 70 of them vines, at 125 tonneaux, whose vigorous wines the Bordeaux trade sought for export. The marquis died without descendants in 1884 and his cousin Hippolyte de Baritault du Carpia inherited; the Baritault family kept Mauvesin for 4 generations.

On August 4, 2011 Viscount Alain de Baritault du Carpia sold it to Lilian Barton Sartorius and her 2 children. The reorganization of the plots began in 2012 with 6 hectares planted; Mélanie Barton Sartorius, the family’s first qualified enologist, joined in 2013 and has replanted with better rootstocks, and Damien Barton Sartorius works on the sale of the family’s 3 properties. The estate covers 220 hectares in Moulis-en-Médoc, between Margaux and Saint-Julien, and its vineyard is 54% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon and 11% Cabernet Franc, 35 years old on average and farmed by integrated methods.

The younger plots are picked by hand, and the grapes are sometimes sorted optically. Twenty-four temperature-controlled stainless steel vats of different sizes let each plot ferment apart, with Éric Boissenot as consultant enologist. The wine ages 12 to 15 months in barrels, one third new from 3 coopers, one third that has held 1 vintage and one third older barrels from Château Léoville Barton, in 2 cellars, one of them about 50 meters long, that hold up to 500 barrels on a bed of gravel. The 2025, picked from September 10 to 24, is 48% Merlot, 48% Cabernet Sauvignon and 4% Cabernet Franc. L’Impression de Mauvesin Barton comes from the youngest plots.

At a glance

Appellation

Moulis-en-Médoc Terroir of Moulis →

Commune

Moulis-en-Médoc, between Margaux and Saint-Julien

Classification

No classification

Owners

Lilian Barton Sartorius and her 2 children, since August 4, 2011

Direction

Mélanie Barton Sartorius, technical director; Damien Barton Sartorius, sales

Consultant

Éric Boissenot

Vineyard

55 hectares of vines on an estate of 220; vines 35 years old on average; plots replanted since 2012

Grapes

Merlot 54%, Cabernet Sauvignon 35%, Cabernet Franc 11%

Farming

Integrated methods

Cellar

24 temperature-controlled stainless steel vats; 12 to 15 months in barrels, one third new

Wines

Château Mauvesin Barton; L’Impression de Mauvesin Barton; Canopée de Mauvesin Barton

In history

Jean de Foix Grailly, 1457; the château built in 1853; the Baritault family, 1884 to 2011