Chateau Ferriere

At the end of the 17th century, Mister Gabriel Ferriere, a renowned ship-broker, acquires this cru, located in the heart of Margaux vineyards and gives it his family name. Royal brokers from father to son, the Ferriere family works for Louis the XVth in particular and wants to produce a great wine, for their several receptions. Two centuries later, Château Ferriere’s owners were proud to see the property ranked as a third Classified Growth. At the end of the 1980s, after almost 300 years in the Ferriere family, another Bordeaux family, the Merlaut, became owner. Bernadette Merlaut-Villars devoted herself to restoring the Château to its former glory.

Château Ferrière is a wine estate in the Bordeaux appellation of Margaux. It makes Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant red blends and was named a Third Growth estate in the 1855 classification of the Médoc and Graves. It has 18 hectares (44 acres) under vine, mostly within the village of Margaux itself, making it one of the smallest of the classed growths.

The estate was founded and named for Gabriel Ferrière, a member of the court of King Louis XV and wine broker in Bordeaux during the 18th Century. The Ferrière family owned the property until 1914, after which it changed hands a number of times and, for several decades in the middle of the 20th Century, the wine was entirely vinified at Château Lascombes. In 1988, it was bought by the Villars family who own several other wine estates including Château Haut-Bages Libéral in Pauillac. Significant renovations to modernize the winemaking facilities were undertaken in 2013.

The vineyard is planted in soils with deeply set gravel deposits from the nearby Garonne river set above limestone marl. The majority is given to Cabernet Sauvignon vines with some Merlot and small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. A second wine is made from a 2-ha (5-acre) plot of younger vines, labeled Ramparts de Ferrière.