Chateau Giscours

The history

Giscours first appears in historical records around 1330, when this site was a fortified citadel. In 1552, the situation became even more interesting when a wealthy textile merchant named Pierre de Lhomme purchased a noble mansion called Guyscoutz from Gabriel Girault, Seigneur de la Bastide, for 1,000 livres. Vines were already being cultivated there long before the Médoc marshes were properly drained.

Come the Revolution, the owner, Monsieur de Saint Simon, left for Spain. Giscours was confiscated as national property (bien national) and sold in 1795 to two Bostonians, John Gray Jr and Jonathan Davis, who may represent the first American proprietors in Bordeaux.

The history of Modern Giscours began in 1995, when Eric Albada Jelgersma, a Dutch businessman, purchased a controlling stake from Nicolas Tari for $31 million. Challenges arose almost immediately. The French Anti-Fraud Authority accused the winery of blending Haut-Médoc wine into its 1995 Grand Vin. Given the circumstances, and having no idea what the technical team had been up to, Albada Jelgersma offered to recall the bottles in question and changed the technical team.

Alexander Van Beek joined the winery as a harvest intern around that time and ended up staying; he initially stepped in to defend the winery's reputation and later took over its operations.

The legal turmoil lasted far longer than the scandal itself. Tari died in 2001, and his children clashed over the ownership of the estate, which was already split between two separate legal entities. This dispute lasted 22 years. During this time, Albada Jelgersma passed away, leaving the business to his children, Dennis, Derk, and Valérie, and in 2023, the remaining family members from Tari's side finally sold their shares to them.

A big property, by Margaux standards

Giscours is by no means a small farm. When you combine the forests, parks, buildings, and farmland, the total area of the property is approximately 400 hectares, of which just under 160 hectares are planted with grapevines.

Not all of this land is located within Margaux. Château Giscours also owns land within the larger Haut-Médoc appellation, a common occurrence for vineyards of this size in the Médoc region, where appellation boundaries cut across a single property.

The large scale of the property brings with it a specific challenge: the differences between vineyard parcels. Therefore, work at Giscours is organized not by block but by individual vine and individual parcel, and the technical team begins considering how the grapes from each parcel will harmonize in the final blend as early as spring, several months before harvest begins.

Putting the Cabernet back where it belonged

Giscours made a costly mistake in the late 1970s and 1980s. Since Merlot was in vogue at the time, they planted it, even on land that was geologically much better suited to Cabernet Sauvignon. Replanting the vineyards is a problem that cannot be solved overnight. Alexander Van Beek took on the task of correcting this mistake, a corrective effort which took years and even decades.

Margaux is located in a maritime climate zone, and the vintage notes for this vineyard itself serve as a record of just how capricious that climate can be. And this is precisely why, at Giscours, a meticulous approach to caring for each individual vine is  very important. Here, where weather conditions can vary drastically from one year to the next, a large part of the work involves identifying which plots exhibit specific characteristics in hot years and which ones will help turn things around in cool years.

Cabernet first, Merlot close behind

Château Giscours is a wine composed of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, with Cabernet typically making up the majority. 

The vineyards are planted with, approximately:

• Cabernet Sauvignon 70%
• Merlot 24%
• Cabernet Franc 3%
• Petit Verdot 3%

Since the blend is based on the grapes actually harvested from each vineyard, the proportions vary by vintage.

The winemaking

Nothing at Giscours is presented as revolutionary. What it emphasises instead is the amount of individual attention each vine gets during the season, and picking grapes at the ripeness stage the blend needs rather than at a single fixed moment across the vineyard.

Blending, in other words, is not a task for late autumn. Thinking about it begins in spring.

Didier Forêt joined as technical director in 2008 and has worked alongside Van Beek since, which gives Château Giscours an stable pair of hands at the top for a Bordeaux estate that changed owners and fought a court case in the same period. Ageing happens in oak, in the classic Médoc manner.

The wines

Château Giscours, the grand vin, is the wine that serves as the benchmark for assessing this winery's quality. It was classified as a Third Growth in the 1855 Classification.

However, the grand vin is not the only wine this estate produces. With vineyards spanning the Margaux and Haut-Médoc regions, Giscours's product line is not limited to just one flagship label. The line-up is:

La Sirène de Giscours — the second wine, Margaux, from younger vines and lots not selected for the grand vin. Around 10,000 cases.

Le Haut-Médoc de Giscours — created in 1992, from a plot adjacent to the estate but outside the Margaux boundary, in the Haut-Médoc appellation.

Le Rosé de Giscours — a rosé, listed on the estate's own wine pages. 

Château Duthil — a Haut-Médoc cru bourgeois, vinified at Giscours.

There is also Petit Sirene rouge and Petit Sirene Blanc but the grapes do not come from the Giscours Vineyards.

Château Giscours offers tours, tastings, and events year-round, making this winery one of the more welcoming establishments in the appellation.