Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste
The story of Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste is naturally intertwined with that of Château Grand-Puy-Ducasse, the two estates originating from one much larger domaine which existed during the Middle Ages. This estate incorporated the Grand Puy (puy being one of many words in old French which refer to a hill or mound), the gravel mound which sits at the western edge of the Bages plateau; this is one of the many gravel croupes on which rest many of the greatest estates of the Médoc.
Driving north towards Pauillac, on either the D2 or the D206, it is difficult to perceive the existence of this puy and plateau. Perhaps the best way to appreciate it is to come in from the west, from Artigues, along the Rue de la Grotte. Once you have passed beneath the railway bridge the road curves round and Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste comes into view, atop an imposing tidal wave of gravel, with more undulating gravel to your left, and the road begins to climb. Atop the gravel mound are the château and winemaking facilities of Grand-Puy-Lacoste, sitting proud.
Grand Puy, indeed.
There is one very obvious difference between the two properties though; while Grand-Puy-Ducasse is one of the more parcellated of all the grands crus classés, its vineyards scattered across at least five zones of the Pauillac vineyards, and its château divorced from the vines, Grand-Puy-Lacoste is the polar opposite. A historic château situated at the heart of its vineyard, the vines wrapped all around it in a single parcel. And today the château remains home to the Borie clan, one of just four owners (the original Dejean-Dinac-Saint-Guirons lineage which ended with the Lacostes, two short tenures for Neal & Hériveau followed by Raymond Dupin, then the Borie family) to have held tenure here during the last few centuries, making this one of an increasingly small number of family-owned and family-run classed growth estates. Add with a track record of making classically styled yet understated and structured wines, and we can begin to understand why Grand-Puy-Lacoste has maintained such a degree of popularity for so long.
Origins
The first identified proprietor of this grand estate, which also included some of the land currently part of Château Lynch-Bages, was a gentleman named Guiraud. It is tempting to think this man must also have had ownership of Château Guiraud in Sauternes, although it wasn’t the case, that other château having been named for Pierre Guiraut, who only acquired it in 1766. The Guiraud of the Grand Puy estate had two daughters, one of whom married a gentleman named Labégorce, the other a conseiller in the Bordeaux parliament named Déjean. The estate seems to have passed to the latter couple, as by 1728 the property was in the hands of a Bernard Déjean. It was at this time that Bernard sold off a section of the vineyard to Pierre Drouillard, chevalier and trésorier général of Guyenne. These vines were to become the modern-day vineyard of Château Lynch-Bages.
