Château Giscours Winery

Bordeaux and the Netherlands have been closely linked for many centuries. It was not least experts from Holland who drained and reclaimed the Médoc so that cloth merchants like Pierre de Lhomme could build castles and vineyards like Château Giscours there. That was around 1552.

Around 440 years later, it was the Dutch entrepreneur Eric Albada Jelgersma who took on the château, which was in need of renovation. It had experienced a chequered history up until then. However, when the Médoc was classified in 1855, the wines were so highly rated that the estate was categorised as the 3ème Grand Cru Classé de Margaux.

Over the years, Jelgersma, his manager Alexander van Beek, who has joined the estate, and his children Valérie, Dennis and Derk have turned the estate with its 79 hectares of vineyards back into one of the leading estates in the Margaux appellation. They produce fragrant, mineral, tannic wines with great aromatic depth and finesse - if they are given the necessary time.

The terroir of the Giscours plateau, which combines the gravelly soils (Peyrosole) of the Grand Poujeau with the sandy gravels (Brunisole) of the Bel-Air hill, is crucial to their quality, giving the Merlot richness and depth and the Cabernet Sauvignon impressive complexity. Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot round off the overall picture of the classic Margaux.

photos: Château Giscours