Château Vieux Gadet

The château

Gadet is a place at Gaillan before it is this estate. In 1874 Édouard Féret’s Statistique générale of the Gironde described a Château-Gadet there under Monnier, one of several holdings at Gadet, of 20 hectares, 17 of them vines, 3/5 of them Malbec, and Bordeaux et ses vins, the reference book of the Bordeaux trade that Féret wrote with Charles Cocks, kept it among the crus bourgeois (a Médoc classification) of the commune until 1922. Vieux Gadet has its own marker: a beam in the vat room carries the date 1835. After the First World War the property and its vineyard lay abandoned; Léon Meynard bought them in 1920 and rebuilt both with his son Edgard, until the great frost of 1956 destroyed much of the vineyard and they joined the cooperative.

Gérard Trento, who married into the family, took the estate on in 1984, still inside the cooperative, and bought more land. The break came in 1995, when his son Thierry Trento, trained in viticulture and enology at Blanquefort, took the estate out of the cooperative and brought the winemaking back to the old cellar, modernized; a 2nd vat room followed in 2010. Vieux Gadet is a Cru Artisan du Médoc for the vintages 2022 to 2026.

The 18 hectares lie at Gaillan-en-Médoc, along the road from Bordeaux to Le Verdon-sur-Mer, 15 kilometers from both the ocean and the estuary, in 4 blocks of different soil, mostly sandy gravel. They are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, 25 years old on average, certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 since 2018. The grapes pass over a sorter and ferment for 15 days, and the wine ages 1 year in vat or barrel; about 100,000 bottles in all, with a rosé, Charme du Vieux Gadet.

At a glance

Appellation

Médoc

Commune

Gaillan-en-Médoc

Classification

Cru Artisan du Médoc, vintages 2022 to 2026

Owners

The Meynard and Trento family, since 1920

Direction

Thierry Trento, since 1995

Vineyard

18 hectares in 4 blocks; vines 25 years old on average

Soil

Mostly sandy gravel Terroir of Médoc →

Grapes

Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2018

Cellar

15 days of fermentation; 1 year in vat or barrel

Production

About 100,000 bottles

Wines

Château Vieux Gadet, red; Charme du Vieux Gadet, rosé

Not to be confused with

Château Gadet Terrefort, a separate estate at Gaillan