Château Pomeys

The château

Pomeys has a long past. In 1452 it belonged to the chevalier de l’Isle, who defended the troops of Charles VII; in the 17th century it was Gaspard de Courtenay’s and, in 1658, his widow Magdeleine du Dufort’s, and later owners include the Maréchal de Duras and, in 1763, Pierre de Montalier. The trade books take it up in the 19th century. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list it from 1868 under F. Dubos, a négociant (a merchant who buys from the châteaux and sells on), at 80 to 100 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and by 1874 among the crus bourgeois supérieurs: an estate of about 400 hectares, 45 of them vines on gravel over clay and limestone, whose wines stood among the best of the commune and owed part of their sève to the age of the vineyard, where, the local people said, grew the oldest vines of the Médoc. It took a silver medal at Paris in 1878, had passed to Dubos’s widow by 1886, and in 1922 belonged to J. Barennes, at 40 tonneaux.

The Barennes family kept it until 2008, when Patrick Meynard, already the owner of Château Lalaudey, bought it; the 2 estates are held together by the SCEA Châteaux Lalaudey & Pomeys. Pomeys was a Cru Bourgeois in the first classification, of 1932, and it is one in the classifications of 2020 and 2025. It lies between Margaux and Saint-Julien on a rise of Tertiary gravel of Pyrenean origin, planted 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon, with vines 25 years old on average.

No herbicide is used and the soil is worked. The vines are leaf-thinned and green-harvested; the grapes are picked late and by hand, selected plot by plot, sorted in the vineyard and again after destemming, and not crushed. A maceration before fermentation, pumping over, délestage and a long vatting follow, in 18 concrete vats and 2 truncated wooden vats of 50 hectoliters, all temperature-controlled, and the wine is aged entirely in French oak barrels. Éric Boissenot advises on the winemaking and the blends.

At a glance

Appellation

Moulis-en-Médoc

Commune

Moulis-en-Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois in 1932, 2020 and 2025

Owner

Patrick Meynard, since 2008, through the SCEA Châteaux Lalaudey & Pomeys

Consultant

Éric Boissenot

Vineyard

Vines 25 years old on average

Soil

Tertiary gravel of Pyrenean origin Terroir of Moulis →

Grapes

Merlot 50%, Cabernet Sauvignon 50%

Farming

No herbicides; soil worked; picked by hand

Cellar

18 concrete vats; 2 wooden vats of 50 hectoliters; French oak barrels

Wines

Château Pomeys

In history

The chevalier de l’Isle in 1452; among the crus bourgeois supérieurs by 1874; silver medal at Paris in 1878