Château Patache d’Aux

The château

Jean-Jacques d’Aux owned the land in 1660 and helped drain the marshes around it. Simon-Pierre d’Aux planted vines in 1710, the first harvest came in 1720 and the first vat house in 1779. Chevalier Henri-Raymond d’Aux sold in 1835 to Pierre Lussac; the Delon family came in by marriage in 1860, and Numa Delon, a banker at Lesparre, ran the estate from 1880. It was under the Delons that the name found its way into print. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list a Cru Patachon under Numa Delon in 1886, a Cru Patache of 80 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) from 1893, and in 1922 a Cru Patache-d’Aux under Numa Delon fils; the estate had taken the name Cru Patache d’Aux in 1918, and it was a Cru Bourgeois in 1932. Claude Lapalu bought it in 1964 and was the first to put a horse-drawn carriage on the label. In December 2016 AdVini bought it from the Lapalu family through its subsidiary Antoine Moueix Propriétés.

The vineyard straddles 2 kinds of soil: 42 hectares on the limestone plateau of Bégadan, the rest on the alluvial gravel terraces of Saint-Christoly-Médoc, over clay and limestone, heavy clay and sandy, loamy gravel. It is planted 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 44% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, at a dense 9,090 vines a hectare, and has been certified ISO 14001 and Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 since 2017. The harvest is by machine with optical sorting, and by hand for the young vines. The wine ferments in uncoated concrete, and 60 to 100% of it spends 10 to 14 months in barrels, one third of them new. Giacomo Piubello is technical director and Stéphane Derenoncourt consults. The youngest vines go into Le Relais de Patache d’Aux and Les Chevaux de Patache d’Aux.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Commune

Bégadan and Saint-Christoly-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois in 1932; Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2025

Owner

Antoine Moueix Propriétés, of the AdVini group, since December 2016

Direction

Giacomo Piubello, technical director

Consultant

Stéphane Derenoncourt

Vineyard

42 hectares on the plateau of Bégadan, more at Saint-Christoly-Médoc; 9,090 vines a hectare

Soil

Clay and limestone over limestone rock, heavy clay, sandy and loamy gravel Terroir of Médoc →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 50%, Merlot 44%, Cabernet Franc 4%, Petit Verdot 2%

Farming

ISO 14001 and Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2017

Cellar

Uncoated concrete; 10 to 14 months, 60 to 100% of the wine in barrels, one third new

Wines

Château Patache d’Aux; Le Relais de Patache d’Aux; Les Chevaux de Patache d’Aux

In history

Cru Patachon under Numa Delon, banker, in 1886; Cru Patache, 80 tonneaux, from 1893