Château de Tracy

The château stands on a rocky spur above the Loire, in the commune that bears its name, with a Renaissance portal on its façade and a medieval keep rising above its slate roofs. A manuscript of 1396 kept in the property's archives records the purchase of the Champs de Cris, which is still planted with vines and still belongs to the domaine. In 1586 François Stutt married Françoise de Bar, who brought him the seigneury of Tracy as a dowry. One side of the family has a documented history that stretches back, unbroken, to barons living in Laggan, in the Scottish Highlands, in the 14th century. Viticulture at Tracy is documented as early as the 14th century but seems to have petered out in the centuries that followed; it was revived in the 1950s, when the estate was directed by Comte Alain d'Estutt d'Assay (1911-1987) and his wife Jacqueline de Tracy (1926-2006). The current family company was re-created in 1952.

• 1396: a manuscript in the property's archives records the purchase of the Champs de Cris, still planted with vines today.
• 1586: François Stutt married Françoise de Bar, who brought him the seigneury of Tracy as a dowry.
• 1950s: viticulture revived under Comte Alain d'Estutt d'Assay (1911-1987) and Jacqueline de Tracy (1926-2006); the current family company was re-created in 1952.

The family company is managed by Juliette d'Assay, the youngest of the four children of Comte and Comtesse Alain d'Estutt d'Assay, who re-created it in 1952. The Château de Tracy cuvée is vinified and bottled at the château and sold by the owners in France and in some thirty countries.

• Manager: Juliette d'Assay, the youngest of four children.
• Re-created the family company in 1952: Comte Alain d'Estutt d'Assay (1911-1987) and Comtesse Alain d'Estutt d'Assay, Jacqueline de Tracy (1926-2006).

The domaine consists of 33 hectares on the slopes around the château itself, on flint, and at Vilmoy, a few kilometres from Pouilly-sur-Loire, on Kimmeridgian limestone. At the north of the Pouilly-Fumé area, on hillsides overlooking the Loire, the vineyard extends from the Butte de Tracy to the Champs de Cris plateau; the estate's technical sheets give a south-west exposure for the Château de Tracy cuvée and for the 101 Rangs parcel. The Butte de Tracy is clay with flint, and the Champs de Cris plateau is Kimmeridgian and Portlandian limestone; the Château de Tracy 2023 draws on both limestone and flint. In the estate's account, the flint gives powerful, sharply defined wines and the limestone gives rich, elegant ones, and blending the two develops a great complexity of aromas and flavours. A single parcel of under one hectare of Chardonnay is planted on fine-grained Portlandian limestone of the Barrois.

• Butte de Tracy: clay with flint; the 101 Rangs parcel sits on the hill above Tracy, facing south-west.
• Champs de Cris plateau: Kimmeridgian and Portlandian limestone; source of Haute Densité.
• Vilmoy: Kimmeridgian limestone, a few kilometres from Pouilly-sur-Loire.
• Chardonnay: one parcel of under one hectare, the source of La Dame de Tracy.

Château de Tracy obtained Haute Valeur Environnementale level 3 certification in 2014. Its product pages present the whole vineyard as farmed biodynamically and state that synthetic products have not been used since 2010. To deal with grapevine trunk disease, the family preferred regrafting to uprooting and replanting, because regrafting preserves deep-rooted old vines, and by 2018 had been replacing 2,000 vines every year since 2010. As harvest approaches, the grapes are tasted plot by plot; juice is selected as it leaves the press, each batch is vinified separately, long élevage and prolonged lees stirring keep treatments to a minimum, and blind tastings during élevage are used to compose the cuvées. For the 2019 101 Rangs, pickers made several passes through certain plots and bunches were table-sorted on arrival; pressing was slow and gentle over several hours with the juice separated into three fractions, fermentation took place in stainless steel and cement vats, and the wine aged on fine lees before bottling.

• Haute Valeur Environnementale level 3 certification obtained in 2014.
• Grapevine trunk disease: regrafting preferred, with 2,000 vines replaced every year since 2010, as of 2018.
• Each batch vinified separately; long élevage with prolonged lees stirring; cuvées composed by blind tasting.
• Château de Tracy 2023 vinified in concrete and stainless steel; 101 Rangs 2019 fermented in stainless steel and cement vats.

Mademoiselle de T is 100% Sauvignon Blanc; the 2023 came from sands, clay and Kimmeridgian rock and was aged in stainless steel and concrete vats. The Château de Tracy cuvée is 100% Sauvignon from the domaine's own vines; for the 2023, the vines averaged 40 to 70 years old on flint, Kimmeridgian marls and limestone, and the wine was vinified in concrete and stainless steel. Haute Densité comes from a 1-hectare plot of Sauvignon on Kimmeridgian and Portlandian limestone on the Champs de Cris plateau, planted at up to 18,000 vines per hectare; the estate puts the common density for the appellation at 7,000 to 9,000. Each vine carries two or three bunches at most, so one vine yields only one glass of wine, and 3,880 bottles were made in 2023. 101 Rangs ('101 Rows') is a strict selection from the oldest Sauvignon plants in the château's oldest vineyard, a parcel planted in 1954 on clay with flint; the 2019 yielded 35 hl/ha and 6,878 bottles. Grand Bois 2022 is a selection of a small hectare inside the 101 Rangs vineyard, on 100% flint with vines averaging more than 70 years, made only in that vintage. La Dame de Tracy is a traditional-method Brut Nature from 100% Chardonnay, labelled Vin de France, which revives sparkling wine produced at the château at the beginning of the last century. The estate's online shop, titled Château de Tracy et Tracy & Cie, also lists Les Marnes wines under the Menetou-Salon, IGP Val de Loire and Vin de France labels.

• Mademoiselle de T: Sauvignon Blanc; the 2023 from sands, clay and Kimmeridgian rock.
• Château de Tracy: the 2023 from vines averaging 40 to 70 years on flint, Kimmeridgian marls and limestone.
• Haute Densité: 1 ha at up to 18,000 vines per hectare on the Champs de Cris plateau; 3,880 bottles in 2023.
• 101 Rangs: parcel planted in 1954 on clay with flint; 6,878 bottles in 2019.
• Grand Bois 2022: a one-vintage selection inside the 101 Rangs vineyard, vines over 70 years old on flint.
• La Dame de Tracy: traditional-method Brut Nature, 100% Chardonnay, Vin de France.

The estate sets out its aim as producing wines as faithful as possible to its soils. Its technical sheet presents the Château de Tracy 2023 as representing two great terroirs of the appellation: limestones, including Kimmeridgian marls, for 'volume, texture', and flint for 'depth, mineral, salinity'. For the 2023 vintage the estate cites 'remarkable freshness' and 'smoky' notes on certain vats, as in 2014 and 2016.

Primary sources (producer's own site and shop): https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/en/domaine/pouilly-fume/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/en/domaine/Chateau/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/grands-vins/chateau-de-pouilly/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/grands-vins/pouilly-fume/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/grands-vins/vente-pouilly-fume-la-viticulture/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/en/domaine/Wine-growining/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/grands-vins/pierre-a-fusil/, https://www.chateau-de-tracy.com/grands-vins/la-vinification/, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/mademoiselle-de-t-s125533.html, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/sauvignon-blanc-101-rangs-s125535.html, and the estate's technical sheets (PDF): https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/img/prod/125533-file2-1.pdf, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/img/prod/125534-file2-1.pdf, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/img/prod/125535-file2-1.pdf, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/img/prod/125544-file2-1.pdf, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/img/prod/125546-file2-1.pdf, https://boutique.chateau-de-tracy.com/img/prod/125531-file2-1.pdf. Official body: INAO, Pouilly-Fumé ou Blanc Fumé de Pouilly product page (https://www.inao.gouv.fr/produit/pouilly-fume-ou-blanc-fume-de-pouilly-21971). Secondary sources: Winedoctor (Chris Kissack, Château de Tracy profile, https://www.thewinedoctor.com/loire/tracy.shtml) and Decanter (Andrew Jefford, last updated 7 February 2018, https://www.decanter.com/wine-news/opinion/jefford-on-monday/grapevine-trunk-disease-phylloxera-383975/). Last verified 2026-10-14. Where the producer's site and a secondary source disagree, the producer's site governs.