Château Olivier

The château

Olivier is a medieval house with its moat and its mullioned windows still standing, and the owners keep the woods around the vines as a nature reserve. Its record in print is long. Charles Cocks, whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins of 1850 grew into the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, listed Château d’Oliviers at Léognan that year under the Comte d’Etchegoyen, at 30 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, gave it 40 to 60 in 1853. The later editions of Cocks, with Édouard Féret, raised the growth to 45 to 60 tonneaux in 1868 and to 75 in 1874, and the family took a silver medal for it at Paris in 1878. By 1886 it was under Émile Rousset, at 70 tonneaux, and the guide singled out the quarter of Olivier for its heavy clay and limestone and its clay and marl. In 1908, under A. Wachter, it made 100 tonneaux of red and 12 of white, and Féret called it one of the oldest growths of the Graves, a name that had always stood high in Belgium, Holland and Germany.

The de Bethmann family has held Olivier for more than a century, and Laurent Lebrun directs it. It was classified in 1953, for red and for white, and the list took its present form with the decree of February 16, 1959; like every classified growth of the Graves, it lies in what became the Pessac-Léognan appellation in 1987, which is why none of them carries the word Graves on its label.

The 60 hectares of vines lie 50% on gravel, 35% on clay and limestone, the heavy soil the old guide noted, and 15% on sand, with vines 22 years old on average. Fifty hectares are in red, 54% Merlot, 43% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Petit Verdot, and 10 in white, 87% Sauvignon Blanc and 13% Sémillon. The estate makes about 220,000 bottles of red and 50,000 of white a year. Picking is by hand and the parcels are vinified apart; the red ages in 35% new oak, with the malolactic in both tank and barrel. Olivier is certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms), was a founding member of the first association of Bordeaux wine firms certified to ISO 14001, and took organic certification with the 2023 vintage. Dauphin d’Olivier, red and white, is the second wine.

At a glance

Appellation

Pessac-Léognan

Commune

Léognan

Classification

Cru Classé de Graves for red and white, 1953 and 1959

Owners

The de Bethmann family, for more than a century

Direction

Laurent Lebrun

Vineyard

60 hectares of vines in an estate of 230; 50 red and 10 white; vines 22 years old on average

Soil

Gravel 50%, clay and limestone 35%, sand 15% Terroir of Pessac-Léognan →

Grapes

Red: Merlot 54%, Cabernet Sauvignon 43%, Petit Verdot 3%; white: Sauvignon Blanc 87%, Sémillon 13%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale; ISO 14001; certified organic from the 2023 vintage

Cellar

Picked by hand; parcels vinified apart; red in 35% new oak

Production

About 220,000 bottles of red and 50,000 of white a year

Wines

Château Olivier (red and white); Dauphin d’Olivier (red and white)

The house

A medieval château with its moat and mullioned windows, in woods kept as a nature reserve

In history

30 tonneaux in 1850; 100 tonneaux of red and 12 of white in 1908