Château Gloria
Ranking: Unclassified
Appellation: St Julien
Owner: Domaines Henri Martin
Ten-second primer: A property created from scratch during the mid-20th century, under Henri Martin and his descendants Gloria has grown to become one of the best-known names in St Julien. Excellent quality wines at a good-value price point. Certified organic. Wines made by Rémi di Constanzo.
This profile includes: Four pages of history and detail (links above), and tasting notes back to 1982.
The origins of Château Gloria are perhaps the most unusual and unexpected of all the châteaux in St Julien, indeed perhaps of all those on the Médoc peninsula, that I have profiled over the years.
St Julien is an appellation rich in history. Take, for example, Château Léoville-Barton, Château Léoville-Poyferré and Château Léoville-Las-Cases, the three châteaux that spring from the great Léoville estate, once the dominion of Blaise Antoine Alexandre de Gascq (1695 – 1753), Marquis de Las-Cases-Beauvoir. Their shared origin can be traced back to the early years of the 17th century, while the three properties we know today were created as the domaine, confiscated following the Revolution, was broken up and sold off.
Meanwhile, around the village of Beychevelle, Château Branaire-Ducru, Château Beychevelle, Château Saint-Pierre and Château Ducru-Beaucaillou also all have a common origin, having emerged from the estate of Bernard de Nogaret de La Valette (1592 – 1661). Here the estate was broken up and sold off not in a post-Revolutionary auction but in order to settle the debts of the bankrupt proprietor. The fire-sale in question took place during the 17th century, although the story of the original property can be traced back even further, to the 13th century.
That’s seven grand châteaux (out of just eleven classified growths in the appellation) with histories stretching back many centuries, each of them coming into being through the break up of larger progenitor estates. St Julien, it seems, was an appellation built upon the fracturing of grand domaines.
The origin of Château Gloria (pictured below), however, is rather different. Indeed, it is the complete opposite. This is not a story of dissolution and disruption, but of consolidation and coherence. A story of gathering together lost and disparate parcels to create something grander, of building up, rather than breaking down. A tale of one man’s desire to own and run a classed growth property, a desire he satiated by buying from neighbouring classed growth estates as many high-quality parcels of vines as he could.
That man was Henri Martin (1903 – 1991).
