Château Saint Ahon

The château

Saint Ahon is old vineyard land. The abbé Baurein, in his Variétés bordeloises, found sires de Saint-Ahon in titles of 1302 and 1343; one of their descendants built a château and a chapel of the same name, and the chapel stood until the new road of the Médoc was laid through. In the 18th century the estate belonged to Charles de Montesquieu. The château was destroyed in the Revolution, rebuilt under Napoleon’s Empire and restored in the 1870s by the architect Alphonse Blaquière; it is now listed as a Remarkable Monument.

The wine has a long record in the trade books. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, listed Château Saint-Ahon, at Cachac, under de Matha in 1845, at 40 to 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels). In 1872 Edmond Damade bought it: 122 hectares near the village of Cachac, 42 of them in vines. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, ranked it among the crus bourgeois (a Médoc classification) from 1883, at 120 tonneaux, and it stayed with the Damade family at least through 1901.

In 1985 Count and Countess Bernard de Colbert, a direct descendant of Louis XIV’s finance minister, became its 67th owners. Their daughter and son-in-law, Françoise and Nicolas Chodron de Courcel, left Paris with their children to settle at Saint Ahon in 2003, and in 2017 their daughter Alice, the 3rd generation, joined to handle communication and visitors. The family opened a shop and Les Jardins de Mirabel in the spring of 2011, and won Best Of Wine Tourism awards in 2011 and 2012.

Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot have grown on the estate for more than 40 years, in small parcels on sand and gravel; the red grapes run 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 10% Petit Verdot. The newer turn is white: Sémillon and Sauvignon Blanc were planted in 2022, and Viognier and Alvarinho were top-grafted in 2025, for a white of 10% Sémillon, 24% Sauvignon Blanc, 33% Alvarinho and 33% Viognier. The vines are 14 years old on average, at 7,500 to the hectare, pruned in double Guyot; the harvest is 90% by machine and 10% by hand, at 40 hectoliters a hectare, for about 80,000 bottles. The estate has held Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 since 2013, entered the new Cru Bourgeois certification in 2018 and is a Cru Bourgeois in the classifications of 2020 and 2025. Aymerick Van Gelderen is the technical manager.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Blanquefort

Classification

Cru Bourgeois, 2020 and 2025

Owners

The family of Count Bernard de Colbert, since 1985; the Chodron de Courcel family on the estate since 2003

Direction

Aymerick Van Gelderen, technical manager

Vineyard

Small parcels; vines 14 years old on average; 7,500 vines a hectare

Soil

Sand and gravel Terroir of Haut-Médoc →

Grapes

Red: Cabernet Sauvignon 60%, Merlot 30%, Petit Verdot 10%; white: Sémillon 10%, Sauvignon Blanc 24%, Alvarinho 33%, Viognier 33%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2013

Cellar

Picked 90% by machine, 10% by hand; 40 hectoliters a hectare

Production

About 80,000 bottles

Wines

Château Saint Ahon, Haut-Médoc; Château Saint Ahon, white Médoc; Colbert-Cannet, Haut-Médoc; La P’tite Canaille and Mirabel, Bordeaux; La P’tite Soeur, Vin de France

In history

Charles de Montesquieu, 18th century; de Matha in 1845; Edmond Damade from 1872, 42 hectares of vines