About Winery
In the reign of Louis XIII, in 1638, a certain Jean de Moytié, Counsellor of the Bordeaux parliament and a noble bourgeois of the town, owned a beautifully sloped gravelly vineyard near the River. This place, as was the tradition, was named after its owner and thus became the "Mont-Moytié."
Historically, the production of Mont-Moytié was among the first Médoc wines, along with the "Château de Margaux", the "Tour de Saint-Lambert" or the "Château de La Fitte" in Pauillac and the "Château de Calon", in Saint-Estèphe, which were all established before the period of civil war known as La Fronde (1648-1653.)
The domain remains part of the Maison de Moytié for a century, and then falls to the Maison de Gascq by marriage.
Full of ambition for his property, Alexandre de Gascq renamed Mont-Moytié as Léoville (or Lionville), after his first estate, "a model property" located on the right bank.
So Alexandre de Gascq was aiming to make Léoville a model estate, producing the best Médoc wine. He planted smaller grape varieties, trellising the rows with pinewood. He had winemaking receptacles built in his new cellar and the free- run wine was aged in barrels disinfected with sulphur, and then racked.
In 1840 an equitable division of both the vineyard and land was agreed upon. The label Léoville-D'Abadie had already been replaced by that of the Baron de Poyferré. The buildings of Château Léoville Poyferré and Léoville Lascase were divided into two parts as they are today, a unique situation in the Médoc and indeed in the Bordeaux area.
The arrival of Didier CUVELIER at the head of the property in 1979, hailed a new era for the success of the domain and the restoration of Léoville Poyferré to its rightful rank among the great Médoc wines.