Château Tour Seran

The château

The 15 hectares of Tour Seran, in a single block by the river, once belonged to the Marquis de Ségur, the man Louis XV called the prince of the vines. In the 19th century it was a small cru of Saint-Christoly: Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list the Cru de Seran of Morange from 1883, at 50 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels), and from 1893 La Tour-Seran of Alf. Morange, at 40 tonneaux in 1898. By 1922 Julien Damoy, the owner of Tour de By, had bought it as the natural complement of his estate, and it had been entirely replanted on the best-exposed gravel rises of Saint-Christoly.

Jean Guyon, the founder of the Domaines Rollan de By, added it to his estates in 2000, 1 year before La Clare. The vineyard lies near the marshes and the Gironde estuary and is planted 65% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 10% Petit Verdot. The grapes are picked by hand and fermented plot by plot in the truncated cone vats Jean Guyon designed to keep juice and skins in close contact; the wine is stirred on its lees for 3 months and aged 12 months in French oak. The group’s vineyards have been certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) since the 2018 vintage and belong to the Natura 2000 program. Tour Seran was a Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in the classification of 2020 and is not in that of 2025. In 2022, 853 trees and new hedges were planted on Tour Seran’s land, with beehives to follow.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Classification

Cru Bourgeois Supérieur in 2020; not in the list of 2025

Owner

Domaines Rollan de By, Jean Guyon, since 2000

Vineyard

15 hectares in a single block

Soil

By the river, near the marshes and the estuary Terroir of Médoc →

Grapes

Merlot 65%, Cabernet Sauvignon 15%, Cabernet Franc 10%, Petit Verdot 10%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale from the 2018 vintage; Natura 2000

Cellar

Picked by hand; truncated cone vats; 3 months on the lees, 12 months in barrel

Wines

Château Tour Seran

The house

Also Château Rollan de By, Château Haut Condissas, Château La Clare and Château Greysac, Médoc

In history

The Cru de Seran of Morange, at Saint-Christoly, from 1883; bought by Julien Damoy by 1922