Château Batailley

Château Batailley is a 90-hectare wine estate located to the south-west of the commune of Pauillac. The 60-hectare vineyard (70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot) is planted on gravelly soil. The name Batailley comes from the word “Bataille”, which took place on the estate in 1453. It was the 100 Years’ War and, during this battle, the French took the fort of Latour, then occupied by the English. This marked the end of British rule in the Médoc. From the 17th century onwards, an organised vineyard developed here. The château’s grounds were redesigned in the 19th century by Barillet-Deschamps, Napoleon III’s landscape architect. Since the 18th century, five families have owned the estate: the Saint-Martin, Pécholier, Bedout, Guestier, Halphen and Borie families after the First World War. Since then, Château Batailley has belonged to a descendant: It was at the end of the Second World War that Francis and Marcel (Denise Borie’s father) separated, and in the 1950s a farm in Batailley became what is now known as Haut-Batailley. Today, four generations of Castéja have lived side by side at Château Batailley. Château Batailley features a covered market built by Gustave Eiffel in 1889 for the Paris Universal Exhibition. Dismantled, it was brought back to the château and reassembled. Today, it is used for concerts and numerous events. In 2005, major work was undertaken. The entire vat room was rebuilt to accommodate the 2006 vintage. The vat room, with its 60 vats of different capacities, all temperature-controlled, was designed to accommodate the different plots of vines on the estate separately, and is managed by Arnaud Durand, under the guidance of consultant oenologist Denis Dubourdieu. After vinification lasting around 4 weeks, the wine is transferred to barrels. Barrels from French forests are used in the 1500-barrel cellars. They come from 8 different coopers and, depending on the vintage, 50 to 60% of the barrels are new, with the remainder made up of barrels used for one wine. After 17 to 20 months maturing in barrels, the wine is bottled. Some of these bottles are kept in the château’s cellar, which now contains almost 55,000 bottles from all the different years, the oldest of which date back to 1881. Batailley is a classic Pauillac, with a dark ruby colour, good body and pronounced notes of blackcurrant. Unusually for a Médoc grand cru, there is no second wine. Château Batailley, the 5th Grand Cru Classé in 1855, is one of the jewels in the crown of the Castéja family and the Borie-Manoux trading house.
Château Batailley is the cradle of the Borie family, and many other properties have been added to this heritage: Château Trotte-Vieille, Premier Grand Cru Classé Saint-Émilion, Château Beau-Site Cru Bourgeois Saint-Estèphe, Château Haut-Bages Monpelou Cru Bourgeois Pauillac, Château du Domaine de l’Eglise, Pomerol, Château la Croix du Casse, Pomerol and, of course, Château Lynch-Moussas, Grand Cru Classé Pauillac.