The Château Moulis estate

Welcome to Château Moulis

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ABOUT US

In 2012, Christian Guillot decided to change his environment. The objective? Find an activity that combines entrepreneurship and could delight a wine lover. During his professional trips to Bordeaux, he takes the opportunity to visit a few properties, while taking the time to study the terroirs, the vines, its grape varieties and its soils. Visit after visit, he finally stopped on the Moulis appellation where he finally acquired 7 hectares of AOC Moulis soil, of which only 3.3 hectares are planted with Merlot, and located on a terroir very rich in clay. Convinced that these lands are a great forgotten terroir, Christian Guillot invests in the recovery of his vineyard without ignoring that it is a 10 or 15 year old company. He also very quickly associated his children Amélie, Caroline and François.

 

Together they created Château Graveyron Poujeaux, whose first vintage is produced in 2013. Part of the challenge was met as this Château won a gold medal at the Lyon International Competition in 2016.

 

Then in 2015 an opportunity presents itself: the takeover of Château Moulis, whose Féret guide already praised its wines in his 1876 edition. This property, owned by the Lasserre family since the 17th century, has flourished for more than three centuries. The wines produced, classified as Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, have won numerous awards: silver medal at the 1882 Bordeaux Exhibition, gold medal at the 1885 Antwerp Universal Exhibition and gold medal at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. Happy to be in this haven of peace, the family’s heirs unfortunately had to part with it.

First taken over by the Darricarrère family in the early 1980s, it was acquired by the Darricarrère family and sold in 2012 to a Chinese investor. Two years later, the latter decided to sell it while major work was to be carried out on the vineyard and all the farm buildings.

It is in this context that this property is presented to Christian Guillot who, despite the importance of the work both in the vineyard and in the cellar, lets himself be seduced and decides to take up the challenge. This is how Château Moulis became a family project and a domain now consisting of nearly 13 hectares and two wines: Château Graveyron Poujeaux and Château Moulis. It is located on soils rich in clay and grünz gravel and needs to be remodeled to make it one of the reference properties of the appellation.

THE VINEYARD

Each grape variety, each region, each appellation and each year is different in terms of climate, which is why each wine and each vintage is different. Diversity is even greater when the work of man and the fruit of his experience are involved. It is a sum of small and multiple interventions that make wine an exceptional product, due to its colour, aromas and structure.

 

Today, Château Moulis vineyard spreads over the entire appellation, which allows it to offer rich and complex wines thanks to the different soils and grape varieties. The particular attention paid to winemaking and maturing completes the elaboration of Château Moulis wines to offer wines of very high quality.

THE WINERY

The Château Moulis cellar is divided into two parts. The traditional barrel cellar (oak, French origin) for the ageing of our wines and the winery. The latter includes a part reserved for vinification directly in new French oak barrels changed every year, as well as a part made up of stainless steel tanks of 20 or 30 hectolitres each according to the origin of our batches. Each tank is temperature controlled.

 

During the harvest, we use two sorting tables, one of which is a berry selector to sort the berries according to their sugar density. Thanks to this sorting we ensure that the harvest is particularly homogeneous.

 

The grapes are always respected at Château Moulis. The use of peristaltic pumps is further proof of this.

THE GRAPE VARIETIES

Merlot is the most common grape variety in the appellation. As far as Château Moulis is concerned, it is planted on its most clayey soils, which gives Château Moulis wines their structure and a length in the mouth that characterize them and a unique signature.

 

Cabernet Sauvignon, also the great grape variety of the Médoc, is very present but is planted on gravelly soils and brings finesse, suppleness and complexity to the wines.

The team

A family property for an authentic and generous project

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Christian Guillot

Founder

Processed with MOLDIV

Caroline & Amélie Guillot

Production & Communication

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A VERY OLD HISTORY

In Roman times, mixed farming and cereal cultivation occupy most of the agricultural area even if some vines were already cultivated there.

 

It was from the Middle Ages that religious communities and feudatories developed the cultivation of the vine, although most of the agriculture remained cereal-based.

 

With the 14th and 15th centuries, the vine knew a certain extension on the Moulis terroir, sufficiently protected from the humidity of the Gironde estuary and its mists. This situation makes it possible to harvest later, which allows the grapes to reach greater maturity.

 

The first mention of winegrower in Moulis would appear around 1671 while the vineyard is already booming. This was the time when the great properties of the Médoc were created. However, the French Revolution put an end to this extension and it was not until the end of the First Empire that Bordeaux and Moulis can experience a new boom.

 

The phylloxera crisis will put an end to the splendour of the 19th century. Also the First World War will not be a favourable time to work in the vineyard and the wine trade.

 

Although the vineyard has recovered, World War II will be a new parenthesis. The frosts of 1956 will force winegrowers to restore their vineyards again and it was not until the late 1970s that Moulis, as well as Bordeaux, will experience a new influence.

THE APPELLATION

The Moulis AOC (Protected Designation of Origin) was created in 1938 and is one of the oldest of the Medoc region that gathers around forty winemakers.

 

With approximately 610 hectares of vine, Moulis represents 3.7% of the global surface of the vineyard in the Medoc region. As a matter of fact, it is the smallest one but for some it is a concentrate of what is typical in the Medoc region.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION

Located slightly south of the 45th parallel, around 35km north-west from Bordeaux, between Margaux and Saint-Julien and next to Listrac, Moulis has an exceptional geographic situation for great wine production. Lands of Moulis are close enough to the ocean and from the Gironde River to take advantage from the tempered oceanic climate but it is also far enough not to suffer from humidity.

This great geographic location offers Moulis to be at the crossroad of different but complementary terroirs. This is why the area is a concentrate of what it is good in the Medoc region.

THE TERROIR

Located in the heart of the Médoc, the soil of Moulis slopes perpendicularly towards the Gironde River, from east to west. Like its wines, it is full of complexity since it essentially consists of gravels from the Garonne River dating back to the Günz (Quaternary), more than 2.5 million years ago.

 

Its gravel soils based on chalky-clayey subsoil to the east, sandstone and mix of clay and limestone to the west and southwest.

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