Château Tour Baladoz

The château

Tour Baladoz stands on the plateau of clay and limestone above Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, on rock quarried out underneath, with a view over the valley. The place is old in print. It appears as Valados in 1841, and in 1868 Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, named Baladoz, under Dalidet, among the principal proprietors of Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, whose best wines sold like the 1ers crus of Saint-Émilion; in 1874 the widow Dalidet made 20 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) there. A book on Saint-Émilion published in 1923 knew it as Château Saint-Laurent, formerly Château Baladoz, a premier cru on the summit of the high plateau with a splendid view over the valley of the Dordogne from its terraces, making some 30 tonneaux of a wine it called “generous, powerful, sappy and extremely fine.” The present name comes from a tower built in 1920.

Émile De Schepper, a Belgian merchant, bought it in 1950, and his family, which owns 5 Bordeaux estates and the négociant (a merchant who buys from the châteaux and sells on) house De Mour, still has it. The list approved in September 2022 made Tour Baladoz a Grand Cru Classé at the same time as Château La Croizille next door: 2 properties of one family, classified in the same year. The vineyard is 7.88 hectares, planted 77% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc and 6% Petit Verdot, and has been certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms), level 3, since 2017. A teaching plot grows the 6 grapes the Saint-Émilion appellation allows, and a wine bar with a terrace is open all year but for the days between Christmas and New Year.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

Saint-Laurent-des-Combes, on the plateau

Classification

Grand Cru Classé in 2022, for the first time

Owners

The De Schepper family, since 1950

Vineyard

7.88 hectares

Soil

Clay and limestone on the plateau, over the rock and its quarries Terroir of Saint-Émilion →

Grapes

Merlot 77%, Cabernet Sauvignon 10%, Cabernet Franc 7%, Petit Verdot 6%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2017

Wines

Château Tour Baladoz

In history

Baladoz at 20 tonneaux in 1874; Château Saint-Laurent, formerly Baladoz, a premier cru at 30 tonneaux in 1923