Château de Carles

In 769, completing the conquest of Aquitaine, Charlemagne had a fortified camp built on the hillock of Fronsac and set up his own encampment on a neighbouring hill whose name, Carles, recalls this illustrious stay. The present château, built in the 15th and 16th centuries and listed as a historic monument (ISMH), is by its architecture and its site one of the finest residences in the region. Montaigne and La Boëtie met there, and in the 18th century the château belonged to Madame de Boufflers, a famous woman of letters and friend of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Acquired at the turn of the 19th century by Guillaume Chastenet de Castaing, deputy then senator of the Gironde, Château de Carles was passed on to Jacques Chastenet de Castaing, historian and member of the Académie française, then to his son Antoine, who, with his son-in-law Stéphane Droulers and his daughter Constance, the present managers, have devoted considerable efforts to reworking and reshaping the vineyard and to modernising all the means and methods of vinification and ageing, while striving to rediscover the essence of tradition. These efforts have borne fruit, and both Château de Carles, a model of concentration and elegance, and Haut-Carles, the estate’s prestigious plot selection, currently produce some of the very best wines of the Fronsac appellation.