Château Meyney

The château

The vines of Meyney appear in the departmental archives of the Gironde in 1276. Pierre Forthon sold the place to the Feuillant monks in 1625, and the house, first a convent, was finished in 1662; in the 17th century the place was known as the Prieuré des Couleys, the priory of Couleys. The Luetkens family, who had come to France from Sweden after the reverses of Charles XII, held it from 1791, and William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, prints it that year under its old name and its new owner: Les Feuillans, Luetkens, 150 to 200 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). In 1855 a traveler through the Médoc found Meyney-Lutkens beside Calon-Ségur, with immense vines and a wine ranked a first bourgeois. The barons du Sault and the counts de Fumel held it from 1862, and in 1919 the baron du Sault sold it to Georges Cordier: 30 hectares of vines, 35 of meadow along the Gironde and 25 of arable, in 1 rectangular block. The Cordier family kept it until 2004, when it passed to the Crédit Agricole group.

Anne Le Naour directs the estate and makes the wine, with Boris Diallo in the vineyard and Thomas Hernandez as cellar master. The vineyard is 51 hectares in one piece, halfway between Montrose and Calon Ségur, on a gravel slope that rises to 20 meters and drains naturally over clay and limestone, with the blue clay beneath. It is planted 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and 15% Petit Verdot, an old and unusually large share of Petit Verdot, and the vines are 35 to 40 years old on average. The 2016 vintage was the first certified ISO 14001 and Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3, through the collective scheme of the Bordeaux wine trade; the conversion to organic farming began in 2021, and 2024 is the first certified year.

The team tastes the grapes every day to set the order of picking; the fruit is sorted 2 times, optically since 2011, and fermented parcel by parcel in stainless steel or concrete. One third of the grand vin (the estate’s first wine) goes through its malolactic fermentation in new barrels, and the wine spends 12 to 18 months in French oak, 1 barrel in 3 renewed each year. Prieur de Meyney, the second wine, takes its name from the old priory; it spends 14 months in French oak, 10% to 15% of the barrels new, carries almost no Petit Verdot, and on a few historic markets is labeled Chapelle de Meyney.

Meyney is a wine that pays back patience, and I have seen it at 2 ages. In May 2024 I tasted the 1989 beside the 2010: the older wine had all the tertiary notes I love, earth, mushrooms, nuts and truffles, on round, soft tannins, while the 2010 still ran on plums and blackberries, with subtle oak and spice. The Chapelle de Meyney 2018, which I wrote about in November 2025, showed the house style in a ripe year: dark fruit held by firm, fresh lines.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Estèphe

Commune

Saint-Estèphe

Classification

No classification

Owner

The Crédit Agricole group, since 2004; the Cordier family from 1919 to 2004

Direction

Anne Le Naour, director and enologist; Boris Diallo, vineyard; Thomas Hernandez, cellar master

Vineyard

51 hectares in one piece; vines 35 to 40 years old on average

Soil

Gravel over clay and limestone, on a vein of blue clay 3 meters thick Terroir of Saint-Estèphe →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 50%, Merlot 35%, Petit Verdot 15%

Farming

ISO 14001 and Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, from the 2016 vintage; organic, certified from 2024

Cellar

Optical sorting since 2011; one third of the grand vin through malolactic in new barrels; 12 to 18 months in French oak, 1 barrel in 3 new

Wines

Château Meyney; Prieur de Meyney, labeled Chapelle de Meyney on a few historic markets

The monks

A convent of the Feuillants from 1625; the house finished in 1662

In history

Les Feuillans under Luetkens, 150 to 200 tonneaux, in 1824