Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste

The vineyard of Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste was first planted in the 1500s under the Guiraud family, and the first structure on the 'Grand-Puy' domain dates to 1737. The name joins 'puy,' an old French word for a hill, with the Lacoste family name, which came through marriage: a daughter of the Saint-Guirons family wed François Lacoste, and the domain took the Lacoste name in the 19th century. Their son Pierre-Frédéric Lacoste inherited the property in 1844 and rebuilt the château in 1855, choosing slate from Touraine over the more common tile; that same year the estate was named among the Médoc's Grands Crus Classés. Financial hardship led Pierre-Frédéric's grandsons to sell the property on 24 February 1926 to Heriveau and Neel, who sold it in 1932 to Raymond Dupin, later chair of the Conseil des Grands Crus Classés. The estate's family history calls Dupin "one of the greatest Bordeaux gourmets of all time." In 1978 Dupin sold the estate to Jean-Eugène Borie, seeking a successor who was 'a true Médoc man,' and Borie immediately entrusted it to his son François-Xavier, who began his career there with the 1979 vintage. François-Xavier and his wife Marie-Hélène moved into the château, found the building in dilapidated condition and undertook a significant restoration.

• The estate shares its origins with neighboring Château Grand-Puy-Ducasse: both come from one much larger domaine that existed in the Middle Ages
• Pierre-Frédéric Lacoste inherited the domain in 1844 and rebuilt the château in 1855, the year the estate entered the Médoc classification
• The property changed hands twice in quick succession: to Heriveau and Neel on 24 February 1926, then to Raymond Dupin in 1932
• Raymond Dupin (d. 1980) sold the domain to Jean-Eugène Borie in 1978 at age 83 and stayed close to the Borie family after the sale

The Grand-Puy plateau rises west of the village of Pauillac, on the left bank of the Gironde estuary. The estate's 90 hectares form a single continuous holding around the château, but the vineyard area is given two ways on the estate's own pages: the 2023 technical sheet lists 60 hectares 'in one block around the Château' as the vineyard in production, while the history page gives 64 hectares planted with vines. The vineyard is planted to 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot and 5% Cabernet Franc at 10,000 vines per hectare, on Riparia gloire and 101.14 rootstocks, with an average vine age of 38 years. The plots remain identical to the land register of the 1855 classification. The soil is very deep coarse gravel: alluvial pebbles about two million years old, carried from the Pyrenees by the Garonne and deposited along the Gironde estuary in layers known as 'croups,' over a bed of limestone. Château Lynch-Bages lies to the west and Château Pontet-Canet to the south, and the estate also has a small parcel next to Château d'Armailhac and Château Pédesclaux to the north.

• Planting density is 10,000 vines per hectare, on Riparia gloire and 101.14 rootstocks
• Soils are worked by mechanical ploughing, and spraying is kept to the effective minimum
• Grapes are picked entirely by hand and sorted twice on vibrating tables, before and after de-stemming
• The 2023 harvest ran September 11 to September 28 for both Grand-Puy-Lacoste and Lacoste-Borie

Fermentation takes place in 43 temperature-controlled vats of different capacities. The must ferments for eight to ten days at 28°C with daily pump-overs. The estate gives the maceration that follows two ways: the 2023 technical sheet records 'a long period of maceration (about 3 weeks),' while the history page gives approximately ten days to complete the extractions. Malolactic fermentation follows. Blending each December draws on the entire Borie family, research and development director and oenologist Christel Spinner, cellar master Benoît Estassy, Antonio Flores and consulting oenologist Éric Boissenot. The grand vin ages 16 to 18 months in French oak barrels, with gravity-fed racking every three to four months. The general practice is two-thirds new barrels and one-third one-year-old barrels; the 2023 vintage used 75% new oak. Second wine Lacoste-Borie, first produced in the 1982 vintage, is blended from lots not used for the grand vin and, for the 2023 vintage, aged in 40% new oak.

• The cellars were renovated in stages: a new vat room in 1981, a harvest reception area in 1991, a renewed winemaking cellar in 1997, and a new barrel cellar with air conditioning in 2003
• A new harvest reception area with vibrating sorting tables followed in 2006, 15 new vats (72 and 97 hectolitres) in 2016 and 9 more vats (97 and 110 hectolitres) in 2018; construction of a new gravity-fed vat room began in 2024, with completion scheduled for the 2025 harvest
• For nearly fifty years the estate has relied on a team of grape-pickers from Valdepeñas de Jaén in Andalusia, who are housed and provided for on the property during harvest
• The wines are sold exclusively en primeur through Bordeaux wine merchants

The Borie family's Bordeaux story begins with brothers Eugène Borie (1862-1911) and Émile Borie (1865-1940), natives of Meymac in the Corrèze, who moved to Bordeaux to set up a wine trading business. They rented cellars in Pauillac in 1886, and in 1901 built their own wineries and acquired Château Caronne Sainte-Gemme. Eugène's son Francis Borie (1890-1953) studied law, joined the family business and, with his brother Marcel, bought Château Batailley after the First World War; the brothers split the business in 1939, and Francis's share became Château Haut-Batailley. In 1941 Francis Borie bought Château Ducru-Beaucaillou in Saint-Julien and moved there; his son Jean-Eugène Borie (1921-1998) succeeded him in 1953. This was the Jean-Eugène Borie whom Raymond Dupin chose as buyer for Grand-Puy-Lacoste in 1978, and Jean-Eugène immediately handed the domain to his eldest son, François-Xavier, who worked alongside his father until 1992. In 2003, after a division of the family domain, François-Xavier became head of Domaines François-Xavier Borie, the company that owns Grand-Puy-Lacoste and that, under a lease, also oversaw Château Haut-Batailley until that property was sold in March 2017; it is no longer in the family's possession. François-Xavier and his wife Marie-Hélène have three children, Emeline, Laurence and Pierre-Antoine, who are co-owners of Grand-Puy-Lacoste alongside their parents. François-Xavier Borie is Owner-CEO, Pierre-Antoine Borie is General Manager, and Emeline Borie is General Manager for Public Relations. The technical team includes Christel Spinner (Director of Research and Development and Oenologist), Benoît Estassy (Cellar Master), Antonio Flores (Head of Culture) and consulting oenologist Éric Boissenot.

• Robert Parker wrote of Jean-Eugène Borie: 'his devotion to his wine, his unwavering commitment to quality, frequent international travels as a Bordeaux ambassador, and his remarkable humility have established him as one of the most esteemed figures in this region'
• Emeline Borie promotes the wines, organizes tastings and coordinates events with Place de Bordeaux merchants, and is responsible for welcoming trade visitors, marketing and communications
• Pierre-Antoine Borie handles relations with the Place de Bordeaux, the wine trade, and brokers
• Jean-Eugène Borie and Monique Rochette had three children, Sabine, François-Xavier and Bruno; François-Xavier is the eldest son

The estate describes Grand-Puy-Lacoste as 'a great classic,' capable of 'aligning its consistent character with the spirit of each vintage,' with 'a beautiful, deep color,' aromas that are 'very pure and complex, subtle and refined,' an 'elegant individuality' in the mouth and 'a powerful tannic structure which never loses its silky smoothness,' adding that it 'needs between eight and ten years to reveal its full potential.' In the words of Markus del Monego, World's Best Sommelier in 1998: 'Patience is rewarded with complex aromas of dried fruit, Havana tobacco and cedar wood, smooth tannins and an exceptionally long aromatic finish.' Jeff Leve of The Wine Cellar Insider scored the 2020 at 97 points, calling it 'the finest vintage ever produced at Grand Puy Lacoste,' scored the 2016 at 96 points, writing that 'this could be the finest vintage of Grand Puy Lacoste ever produced,' and also gave 96 points to the 2022 and the 2019. The 2022, blended from 79% Cabernet Sauvignon and 21% Merlot, came from the earliest harvest in the estate's history. The Wine Cellar Insider lists the estate's best vintages as 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2005, 2000, 1996, 1995, 1990, 1982, 1970, 1961, 1959 and 1945.

• Jeff Leve recommends at least 12-20 years of bottle age, with peak maturity between 12 and 35 years after the vintage
• The wine is known in Asia as 'Crocodile Wine,' a reference to the logo of the Lacoste sportswear brand
• Annual production is 140,000 bottles
• The château today serves as a showcase for wine tasting, welcoming customers and wine enthusiasts from around the world

Primary sources (the estate's own site, fetched as raw page text via curl and tag-stripping, not a summarizing tool): https://www.chateau-grand-puy-lacoste.com/en_US/ (home, the château, the family, our wines, gallery, where to find our wines, and the 2023 technical sheets for Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste and Lacoste-Borie). Secondary sources (also fetched as raw page text): Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux's estate profile (ugcb.net), Winedoctor's estate profile (thewinedoctor.com, key-facts section only; the rest of the page is behind a subscriber login), and The Wine Cellar Insider's estate profile and tasting notes (thewinecellarinsider.com). Last verified 2026-10-12. Where the estate's own site and a secondary source disagree, the estate's own site governs; see conflicts.json for the vineyard-size, maceration-length, new-oak-percentage, vat-count, and ownership-title discrepancies, including two internal inconsistencies found across the estate's own pages.