Château Pichon Baron

The château

Pierre Desmezures de Rauzan bought vines beside Latour in 1689, and the marriage of his daughter Thérèse to Baron Jacques Pichon de Longueville in 1694 is the founding date of the estate. The trade could not decide where Pichon belonged. André Jullien, the Paris wine merchant whose Topographie de tous les vignobles connus of 1816 surveyed the vineyards of the world, put it in his second class; William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, made it a third growth that year at 1,500 to 1,800 francs the tonneau (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels); Jullien moved it back up beside Latour in 1832, at 100 to 120 tonneaux; and Charles Cocks wrote in 1846 that some still thought it a third.

In 1850 a deed parted the land among the heirs. Baron Raoul took two fifths, the part that became Pichon Baron, and built in 1851 the château in the Renaissance manner that stands today; his sisters’ shares, across the road, became Pichon Comtesse. The wine was still made in common, and the brokers of 1855 ranked 1 Pichon a Second Growth; the 2 wines parted around 1860. Cocks and Édouard Féret, in the 1868 edition of Bordeaux et ses vins, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, printed the Baron and the Comtesse de Lalande side by side among the second growths of Pauillac and added that the 2 had once been joined under the name Bâtisse; the edition of 1874 printed 3 Pichon holdings, adding the Vicomtesse de Lavaur, and the editions of 1893 and 1898 gave an older name still, Badère. AXA Millésimes bought the estate in 1987.

The 73 hectares lie some 40 kilometers north of Bordeaux on the left bank of the Gironde, on Quaternary gravel of big pebbles and sand, planted 66% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot and 1% Sémillon, with vines 35 years old on average. Les Tourelles de Longueville is the second wine, and Les Griffons de Pichon Baron is made as a red with a dry white beside it. The 2014, which I tasted in December 2025, is a reason never to overlook the quieter vintages here: Cabernet with the cool-season graphite of Pauillac, in a lovely window now, enough bottle age to soften the frame and enough classic structure to say exactly where it comes from.

At a glance

Appellation

Pauillac

Classification

Deuxième Cru Classé 1855; Michelin Guide, 2 grapes (2026)

Owner

AXA Millésimes, since 1987

Vineyard

73 hectares; vines 35 years old on average

Soil

Quaternary gravel of big pebbles and sand Terroir of Pauillac →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon 66%, Merlot 27%, Cabernet Franc 5%, Petit Verdot 1%, Sémillon 1%

Wines

Château Pichon Baron; Les Tourelles de Longueville; Les Griffons de Pichon Baron, red and white

The house

Founded in 1694; divided in 1850; the château of 1851

In history

A second in 1816, a third in 1824, beside Latour in 1832, a Second Growth in 1855