Château Kirwan

The history of Kirwan has been woven through generations, beginning in the 18th century with an alliance between Mark Kirwan, an Irish merchant, and the daughter of Sir John Collingwood, “Sieur de Lasalle”, a well-known English merchant in Bordeaux. In 1760, this union gave birth to the estate by merging the Lasalle lands with the Ganet estate, near the village of Cantenac. Under Kirwan’s management, the estate prospered and its wine, known as “Quirouen”, was described as a “second-rate grand cru” by Thomas Jefferson, then US ambassador to France. In 1855, a decisive turning point came when Kirwan was classified as one of the Médoc’s 3rd crus and Bordeaux’s 16th grand vin. The estate changed hands and became the property of the Godard family. Camille Godard, then mayor of Bordeaux, designed the landscaped grounds of Kirwan, giving it its characteristic charm. In 1925, the Schÿler family acquired the estate. Established as “Schröder & Schÿler” for four generations as merchants in Bordeaux, the family was already marketing the wines of Château Kirwan. The history of the estate continued with Armand Schÿler and his descendants, including Jean-Henri Schÿler, who devoted himself to rebuilding the vineyard from 1955 to 1967, revitalising the estate and consolidating its reputation thanks to the creation of the Margaux AOC in 1954. Today, Jean-Henri Schÿler’s children, Sophie, Nathalie and Yann, the 8th generation, run the estate. They are perpetuating this heritage by inaugurating a new winery in March 2017, a symbol of the transmission of knowledge and the ongoing quest for excellence, marking the Schÿler family’s ongoing commitment to the estate that they have looked after for almost a century.