Top 10 vintages and Château Giscours guide

Welcome to our Château Giscours3rd grand cru of the appellation Margaux. Find tasting notes and advice on food and wine pairing. Learn about the best vintages, the history of the estate, and information about the vines and winemaking.

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Château Giscours Best Vintages Guide

Today, Comptoir des Millésimes presents the finest wines in the world. best rated of Château Giscours. This ranking is not official. It is based on the Robert Parker and The Wine Advocate ratings. Everyone is free to taste the different vintages of the famous Margaux appellation.

This is the classification of the best vintages of Château Giscours :

1. Giscours 1961: 96/100
2. Giscours 2015: 94+/100
3. Giscours 2016: 93/100
4. Giscours 2010: 93/100
5. Giscours 2014: 92/100
6. Giscours 2005: 92/100
7. Giscours 2001: 92/100
8. Giscours 1975: 92/100
9. Giscours 2018: 90-92+/100
10. Giscours 2017: 90-92/100

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All about the Château

To further your knowledge of Château Giscours, Comptoir des Millésimes has prepared a complete guide to the château, its history, its vineyards and its wines.

History of the château

Château Giscours was first mentioned in 1330, when it was listed in the historical archives as a fortified property. The first reference to Giscours for the production of Bordeaux wine dates back to 1552. Moving on to more modern times, before the onset of the French Revolution, Château Giscours belonged to the Saint-Simon family. Confiscated during the Revolution, it was sold in 1793 to two Americans from Boston, John Gray and Jonathan Davis. After that, a multitude of owners took over the ownership and management of Château Giscours until it was acquired in 1845 by the Count of Pescatore. Two years later, he hired a new manager for their Bordeaux property, Pierre Skawinski. Interestingly, de Pescatore had good luck with Skawinski, who later became one of the most respected growers of his time in Margaux as well as Bordeaux. Some of Skawinski's contributions include the invention of a type of plough in 1860 that still bears his name. He was one of the most important figures in the fight against mildew. Pierre Skawinski managed Château Giscours for 50 years. During his tenure, Pierre Skawniski had the then novel idea that everything in the cellar should be moved by gravity. While most of the great Bordeaux châteaux use gravity in their cellars today, this was a revolutionary development at the time. Pierre Skawinski remained at Château Giscours even after it changed hands and became the property of the Cruse family. The Cruse family sold Giscours in 1913. After the sale, Château Giscours went through a long and difficult period. By the time the vineyards were purchased by the Tari family, they were in such poor condition: less than 10 hectares of vines were bearing grapes.

One of the first things to happen with the young Alexander van Beek at the helm was a continuous replanting of their vineyards, with a marked increase in Cabernet Sauvignon. Vine density has also been increased. In all, 30,000 vines were replanted in one year. To better illustrate the work involved, by the end of the vineyard planting, over 130,000 vines had been replanted! This was necessary because the vineyards had been left in poor condition, and some plots were almost 50% short of vines. The efforts began to bear fruit in just a few years. Another change took place when Giscours switched from machine harvesting to manual harvesting.

From the 2000 vintage onwards, Alexander van Beek truly revolutionized the destiny of Château Giscours. Each subsequent vintage shows signs of slow but steady improvement for this Bordeaux wine.

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Château Giscours vineyard

The 102 hectares (AOC Margaux) of the Château Giscours vineyard are planted with 60% of Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% of Merlot , 5% of Cabernet Franc and 3% of Petit Verdot . Current plantings show a marked increase in Cabernet Sauvignon. Previously, over 50% of their vineyards were planted to Merlot in the mid-1990s.

As you can see, this is no longer the case, as the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon has increased considerably. This was one of the key decisions taken by Alexander van Beek, who began replanting the vineyard in 1995. The Château Giscours vineyard is divided into 43 separate parcels. 63 hectares of vines are planted in the Haut Médoc appellation to produce Le Haut Médoc de Giscours. However, even the casual observer can't help but notice that there are also 50 hectares of perfectly landscaped greenery and lush gardens forming part of the Château Giscours estate.

The terroir is mainly gravel with sand and limestone in the soil. The vineyard has 3 peaks, with the highest altitude reaching 32 meters. On average, the vines are almost 45 years old. However, the estate does have some old vines less than 70 years old, made up of both Cabernet Sauvignon and some Merlot. Vine density averages 10,000 vines per hectare. The highest density levels represent new plantings.

Today, 20% of their vineyards are biodynamically farmed. This figure is set to increase over the next few years. The best terroir is directly opposite the château, where the oldest vines are also located.

 

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