Château Bellerive

In 1839, Lecoutre de Beauvais, in his journal Le Producteur, reports that the wines from this estate were considered among the best “Bons Bourgeois” of this commune and sold at a price of 300 to 400 francs per barrel. For nearly a century they were known and sold under the name “Clos Valeyrac”.
Upon an inheritance, in the 1920s, this estate took the name Château Bellerive-Clos Valeyrac. And, as Bernard Ginestet ingenuously remarks in his book Le Médoc, the name “Bellerive” is not usurped because, in the best Médoc tradition, the vines “look at the river”, an expression meaning that the gravel rises face the Gironde estuary.
In the 1929 edition of Bordeaux et ses vins, when it appears for the first time under this name, Charles Féret, who succeeded his father Édouard and was concerned with ranking “in order of merit”, of his own authority placed Château Bellerive at the head of the list of growths of the commune of Valeyrac. Since then, it has not fallen short. To the vineyard of the old clos, which formerly produced 15 to 20 barrels of a wine much sought after and highly esteemed in Holland and Belgium, the current owner has made important improvements.
The estate as a whole now comprises 13 hectares of fine vines on soil that is sometimes sand-gravel, sometimes sand-clay, which produce a wine distinguished by a very developed bouquet, great finesse and long staying power.
The meticulous care given to the cultivation and vinification of this growth makes it one of the most esteemed: after Charles, then Claude Féret, Gault-Millau, the Guide Hachette and Hubrecht Duyker have in turn praised the quality of Bellerive. As for Bernard Ginestet, a great expert on the subject, he “finds the wines of Château Bellerive quite complete, generally ripe and showing melted tannins that reveal themselves on the nose with aromas of cherry and on the palate with a robust body but without aggression. Good value.” We could not say it better.