Château Sénilhac

The estate

Sénilhac was a name the trade knew well in the 19th century. Charles Cocks listed it in 1850, in Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins, under Coiffard aîné at 130 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and in 1855 Armand d’Armailhacq, whose book on the vineyards and wines of the Médoc appeared that year, counted it among the bourgeois ordinaires. From 1868 Cocks and Édouard Féret put it first among the crus bourgeois on the heavy soils of the commune and called it a mark known in Belgium and Holland, at 150 to 200 tonneaux. By 1883 it belonged to Armand Lalande, the owner of Cantenac Brown, at 200 tonneaux; it won a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889, and under his heirs, who still held it in 1922, it made 250 tonneaux in 1898, 15 of them white.

Today it belongs to Maison Maral, a Bordeaux house founded by a family of French and Mongolian heritage, newcomers to the traditions of the place, which also owns Château Tour Saint-Pierre, Château Larteau and Clos Bel Air. Éric Lagadec manages the estate. The vines, about 25 years old, grow on clay and limestone with deep water reserves, between the river and the forest, and the estate holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. The grapes are picked by machine and sorted, and the wine is made parcel by parcel in temperature-controlled vats. It is a Cru Bourgeois in the classifications of 2020 and 2025.

At a glance

Appellation

Haut-Médoc

Commune

Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne

Classification

Cru Bourgeois, 2020 and 2025

Owner

Maison Maral

Direction

Éric Lagadec, estate manager

Vineyard

Vines about 25 years old

Ground

Clay and limestone with deep water reserves

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Cellar

Picked by machine and sorted; parcel by parcel in temperature-controlled vats

Wines

Château Sénilhac

The house

Maison Maral also owns Château Tour Saint-Pierre, Château Larteau and Clos Bel Air

In history

Coiffard, 130 tonneaux, in 1850; Armand Lalande from 1883; gold medal at Paris in 1889

Sources: Maison Maral, Château Sénilhac · Maison Maral · Maison Maral, about · Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc, Château Sénilhac · Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc, the classification of 2025 · Alliance des Crus Bourgeois du Médoc, the classification of 2020