Château Montrose

The Château Montrose is one of the youngest wine estates in the Bordeaux Médoc region. It was created in 1815, by Étienne Théodore Dumoulin. Back then, Étienne bought a stretch of land to the de Ségur family. His intention was to plant a huge and bountiful vineyard in a place where nothing but heather used to grow. He cleared the entirety of his new property and had a castle built, as well as some workshops and warehouses. In 1850, the Montrose vineyard reached 50 hectares of surface. It was then that the name "Montrose" was officially adopted by the estate, as a reference to the many pink flowers growing and blooming on the nearby hill, next to the Gironde River.

Étienne's first victory came in 1855, when the Château Montrose cuvée made its entry in the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification. Spurred by his success, the winemaker kept expanding his vineyard until his death, in 1861. His children inherited the estate and the now 95 hectares vineyard but unfortunately they were not keen on becoming winemakers themselves. That's why they chose to sell the family property to Mathieu Dollfus, a rich industry captain from Alsace who would greatly modernize the equipment and the buildings.

As a true precursor, Mathieu also decided to grant better working conditions to his employees and helped the Montrose vineyard survive the phylloxera invasion that was spreading all over France. His solution? An elaborate irrigation system that could flood the soil, in order to drown the parasites that were attacking the vine stocks. This genius idea would later be adopted by many other wine estates.

Mathieu died in 1886. Ten years later, the Charmolüe family (owners of the neighboring Château Cos d'Estournel) bought the Château Montrose. The members of this family managed their new property for many years, leading Montrose on a path to prestige and excellence. In 2006, the brothers Martin and Olivier Bouygues, huge Saint-Estèphe enthusiasts, ended up taking ownership of the wine estate. They elected Jean-Bernard Delmas and then Hervé Berland as directors of the Château Montrose. The first one was the former director of the Château Haut-Brion and the second one worked for the Château Mouton Rothschild.

Discover the wines from Château Montrose.