Château Fontenil
The story of Château Fontenil undisputedly begins with the arrival of Dany and Michel Rolland, who purchased this small property in the commune of Saillans, in the Fronsac appellation, in 1986. This is not to say that there were not vines here beforehand, because there most certainly were, and the property came with a vat room and barrel cellars, even if they were in an advanced state of dilapidation. It is more that, before the property came into the hands of the Rolland family, it seems to have had no great standing or reputation. It is only now, after several decades of determined work by the Rollands, that we should regard the estate as one of the leading names in Fronsac.
In this profile I examine the history of the estate, and how the Rollands have lifted it to the Fronsac top tier, as well as providing some detail on the vineyards, vinifications and the wines today. I begin, however, with what details I have uncovered on the origins of the vineyard.
Origins
In truth there are very few facts to inform us regarding the history of the Fontenil vines, although we know they were historically in the possession of the Noël family of Château du Faure Haut-Normand. This Fronsac estate lay just to the north of the modern-day Château Fontenil, taking its name from the lieux-dits of Fauré and Normand, but in recent times it faded into obscurity. The usual Bordeaux texts provide little information on this estate; the 1922 Cocks et Féret, for example, mentions a Pierre Noël based at Normand, his annual output of 50 tonneaux (the equivalent to 200 barrels) of wine considerable, but there are no other references to the estate.
What we do know of Château du Faure Haut-Normand is that this property remained in this family’s hands until the 1970s or early 1980s, after which point it is difficult to find any trace of it all, and until recently the only bottles I had seen dated to the 1970s. Having said that, I know that in 2018 it came into the hands of John Mitra, an English businessman, who ran the estate with advice from the Rollands until he sold it again in 2022.
