Château Monbrison

The estate

William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists Monbrison at Arsac under de Monbrison in 1845, and Armand d’Armailhacq, a Pauillac grower, places it among the bourgeois supérieurs in his La culture des vignes of 1855, about 10 hectares making 20 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) under M. Feuillebois. It had once been half of Château Desmirail, detached in a family partition, and Chaix d’Est-Ange, the celebrated advocate who presided over the imperial Senate, made it a model vineyard. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it under him from 1868 and among the crus bourgeois supérieurs of Arsac by 1886, then under Clanis in 1893 and 1898.

In 1922 Robert Meacham Davis, a pastor and Red Cross envoy, bought Monbrison with his wife Kathleen Johnston, whose father Nathaniel Johnston had owned Château Dauzac and Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. It was their main home until 1939; in 1940, as a United States citizen, Davis had to leave France. Their daughter Elizabeth and her husband Christian Vonderheyden brought the vineyard back, planting in 1963 the vines that still give the grand vin. Their son Jean-Luc took over the vines and the winemaking in 1976 and was green-harvesting in 1986. Laurent Vonderheyden, the youngest son, who ran a wine import business in the United States for about 12 years, now runs the estate with his 4 children, Alix looking after the vines.

The 12.5 hectares lie on thick Pyrenean gravel over veins of clay, planted 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Petit Verdot, and since 2019 the family has been trialing organic and biodynamic farming, with a view to converting the vineyard to organic. The grand vin, from the oldest vines, ages 18 months in French oak, 40% new. Bouquet de Monbrison comes from the youngest vines, the Haut-Médoc de Monbrison mainly from Merlot on clay and limestone at Arcins, and La Rose de Monbrison is a pressed rosé of Cabernet Sauvignon. Monbrison is a member of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux.

At a glance

Appellation

Margaux

Commune

Arsac

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Davis and Vonderheyden family, since 1922

Direction

Laurent Vonderheyden; Alix Vonderheyden, the vines

Vineyard

12.5 hectares

Ground

Thick Pyrenean gravel over veins of clay

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 60%, Merlot 20%, Cabernet Franc 15%, Petit Verdot 5%

Farming

Organic and biodynamic trial since 2019

Cellar

Grand vin 18 months in French oak, 40% new

Wines

Château Monbrison; Bouquet de Monbrison; Haut-Médoc de Monbrison; La Rose de Monbrison

In history

A model vineyard under Chaix d’Est-Ange; a cru bourgeois supérieur of Arsac by 1886

Sources: Château Monbrison, one family, four generations · Château Monbrison, our wines · Château Monbrison, know-how · Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, Château Monbrison