Château Pontoise Cabarrus

The château

The estate’s history goes back to the 18th century, and its name to 1795, when Joseph Hector de Brane ceded it to Jean Valère Cabarrus, a Bordeaux shipowner and merchant, and Pontoise became Pontoise Cabarrus. His son Jean-Adolphe ran it after him: William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists Coufran and Pontoise together under Adolphe Cabarrus in 1845, and by 1850 Charles Cocks, in Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins, prints Pontoise apart. The name outlived the family. From 1893 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, print Pontoise-Cabarrus-Brochon, under Bouillaud, among the crus bourgeois (a Médoc classification) on gravel, and carry it to 1922.

Émile Tereygeol, from the Corrèze, bought it in 1959 on his return to France after 20 years in Morocco, enlarged it to 12 hectares and left it to his son François. The parcels were replanted in the 1980s to Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot and the estate grew to 27 hectares; from 2010 François handed it on to his children.

The vines lie between the estuary and the pine forests, on Quaternary gravel facing the Gironde. The first wine is mostly Cabernet Sauvignon, 50 to 65%, with Merlot, from vines 40 years old on average, the oldest planted in 1951. The estate is farmed by reasoned methods and certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. The grapes are picked by machine, variety by variety and parcel by parcel, and every wine ages 12 months in French oak barrels, with one third of the barrels renewed each year for the first wine; Éric Boissenot and Édouard Lambert advise on the blends. Côté Pontoise, from younger vines, is the second wine, and a pure Petit Verdot, from 2 hectares, is made only in the most promising years, the first in 2016. It was a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in the classifications of 2020 and 2025. In 2025 Château Charmail, its immediate neighbor, bought the estate.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, 2020 and 2025

Owners

Château Charmail, since 2025; the Tereygeol family from 1959 to 2025

Consultants

Éric Boissenot and Édouard Lambert

Vineyard

27 hectares; vines 40 years old on average, the oldest of 1951

Soil

Quaternary gravel Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Château Pontoise Cabarrus: Cabernet Sauvignon 50 to 65%, with Merlot

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Cellar

Picked by machine; 12 months in French oak barrels, one third new for the first wine

Wines

Château Pontoise Cabarrus; Côté Pontoise, the second wine; a Petit Verdot

In history

Coufran and Pontoise under Adolphe Cabarrus in 1845