Château Reysson

The château

Reysson goes back to the 17th century; the great Cassini map of France shows it in 1750 as Le Bâtiment. Its modern name came with Auguste Dreyfus, who bought it in 1891. By 1898 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, counted it a cru bourgeois (a Médoc classification) of 250 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), on an estate of 140 hectares with 60 in vines, its varieties changed for the better when the vineyard was replanted; by 1922 it belonged to the Comte de Primo-Réal. It was a Cru Bourgeois in the first classification, of 1932. The Japanese company Mercian bought it in 1988, and Dourthe, the Bordeaux house founded in 1840, took over the running in 2001 and the ownership in 2014. Joachim Gilbert manages it.

The vines stand at the top of a plateau at Vertheuil, on clay and on limestone full of fossil shells, on the plateau and down its slopes. That soil is why Reysson is a Merlot estate: after studying the soils, Dourthe replaced most of the Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 54 hectares now hold 45 of Merlot, 5 of Cabernet Franc, 3 of Petit Verdot and 1 of Cabernet Sauvignon; the 2023 has 11% Petit Verdot. The soil is worked entirely by machine, and the estate is certified Terra Vitis and Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms). Moulin de Reysson, the second wine, comes from the younger vines.

Reysson was a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in the classification of 2020, and in February 2025 it became a Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, one of 14 in the Médoc; the 2023 is its first vintage at that level.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Vertheuil

Classification

Cru Bourgeois in 1932; Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2020; Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel in 2025, 1 of 14, from the 2023 vintage

Owner

Dourthe, running it since 2001 and owning it since 2014

Direction

Joachim Gilbert, estate manager

Vineyard

54 hectares

Soil

Clay and limestone, with fossil shells, on a plateau and its slopes Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

45 hectares of Merlot, 5 of Cabernet Franc, 3 of Petit Verdot, 1 of Cabernet Sauvignon

Farming

Terra Vitis; Haute Valeur Environnementale; the soil worked by machine

Wines

Château Reysson; Moulin de Reysson

In history

Auguste Dreyfus, 140 hectares with 60 in vines, 250 tonneaux, in 1898