A brief history
Since 2020, Château Malescasse has been classified as an Exceptional Cru Bourgeois.
This recognition crowns the exemplary work carried out over the past 7 years by a team of experts and enthusiasts. The daring decisions, the efforts made and the energy of a close-knit team, have been able to accompany considerable investments which are now bearing fruit. By obtaining this distinction, this course focused on excellence is now recognized and rewarded.
Heirs to the Ancien Régime, these wines were estates acquired by the bourgeois of the city of Bordeaux who enjoyed tax privileges. Enriched by maritime trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, many of them acquired good land in the Médoc to produce this “French claret” so dear to the English. The Revolution undertook to unify the fiscal particularities of the Ancien Régime, but they never wanted to lose their traditional name, proud to be above “artisan crus” and “peasant crus”. The Médoc or the mania for classification ...
In the middle of the 19th century, we find them moreover subdivided into several categories: superior growths, good bourgeois, ordinary bourgeois. In 1932, a census carried out by brokers and the Bordeaux Chamber of Commerce and Industry numbered 444 vintages. Nevertheless, such a considerable number of properties had erased any selective aspect. Also, in 2000, a hierarchy of merit tries to be established.
Exceptional Crus Bourgeois, Crus Bourgeois Supérieures, Cru Bourgeois “tout court”… the new classification carried out by a jury of experts was approved by decree in 2003. It distinguished 247 châteaux out of 490 candidates… But the Administrative Court of Appeal of 2007 l 'will cancel: the Crus Bourgeois will have to review their copy.
