Haut means upstream
The Médoc (opens in a new tab) is a peninsula between the Atlantic and the Gironde estuary, named for the Medulli, a people of the Roman period. The wine trade split it long before any appellation existed. In the 1883 English edition of Bordeaux and Its Wines, Classed by Order of Merit, Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret wrote that commerce divided the Médoc in 2. The Haut-Médoc (opens in a new tab) ran from Blanquefort, on the city’s northern edge, to Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, just north of Saint-Estèphe (opens in a new tab); the Bas-Médoc from there north to Talais and Soulac.
Haut and Bas described the river, not the land. Haut-Médoc is the stretch higher up the estuary, toward Bordeaux; Bas-Médoc is the stretch lower down, toward the sea. Cocks and Féret already thought the names unfair: some ridges in the Bas-Médoc stand higher than the highest in the Haut-Médoc, and the word Bas made fine wines sound inferior.
When the appellations were drawn on November 14, 1936, the north did not take the word Bas. It became plain Médoc, and the old line held: the Haut-Médoc appellation runs from Blanquefort to Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, exactly where the trade put it in 1883. The Médoc appellation’s area reaches further south than its name suggests, but its reds come mainly from the north.
Crus Bourgeois in the north, 1855 in the south
| Médoc | Haut-Médoc |
|---|
| Where | The northern end, toward the mouth of the estuary | The southern half, around the 6 communal names |
| Colors | Red, and dry white from the 2025 vintage | Red only |
| Growths of 1855 | None | 5 |
| Crus Bourgeois (opens in a new tab), 2025 | 91, more than any other appellation | 53 |
Médoc covers 5,560 hectares, one third of the peninsula’s vines, worked by 440 growers, nearly half of them in cooperative cellars. Its standing comes from the Crus Bourgeois, the Médoc’s list of estates below the growths of 1855, rather than from 1855 itself.
Haut-Médoc holds 5 growths of 1855: La Lagune (opens in a new tab), Cantemerle (opens in a new tab), La Tour Carnet (opens in a new tab), Belgrave (opens in a new tab), and Camensac. It makes about 250,000 hectoliters a year, some 33 million bottles.
Six names cut out of the Haut-Médoc
Inside the Haut-Médoc, 6 appellations take the name of a commune: 4 sit on the gravel along the estuary, and 2 lie inland, away from the water.
Add the 55 growths in this table, the 5 in the Haut-Médoc, and Haut-Brion (opens in a new tab) in Pessac-Léognan (opens in a new tab), and the list of 1855, as it stands, is complete. That is 61 red growths, none of them in the Médoc appellation.
The 2 communes away from the water
Listrac-Médoc is one commune on the highest land of the peninsula, at 43 meters, between the Landes forest and the estuary. Its soils lie side by side in 3 kinds: gravel rises, clay and limestone plateaus, and deep clay. It has 700 hectares, 567 of them in production, about 4% of the Médoc’s vines. No wine of Listrac made the brokers’ list of 1855, which followed the prices wines had fetched, and Listrac found its standing among the Crus Bourgeois instead.
Moulis, which may also be labeled Moulis-en-Médoc, is a ribbon 12 kilometers long, halfway between Margaux and Saint-Julien, running inland at right angles to the estuary without ever reaching it. The name comes from its mills. Its soil runs in bands of gravel, clay, and limestone, the gravel suiting Cabernet Sauvignon (opens in a new tab) and the clay and limestone suiting Merlot (opens in a new tab).
Both are red only, and both hold Crus Bourgeois, 7 in Listrac-Médoc and 5 in Moulis in the 2025 classification. When the Médoc is reduced to 4 famous villages, these are the 2 communal names left out, and the Crus Bourgeois are where they make their names.