THE MÉDOC, FIRST AMONG HISTORICAL WINES

If the young wines of the medieval period were all the rage in Anglo-Gascon times, it was under the reign of the great benefactor, Henri IV, that good conditions for a great modern vineyard appeared in the Médoc. A year after the Edict of Nantes, in 1599, the Compagnie des Digues was set up and the draining of the “pestilential” Médoc was undertaken.

In 1601, Baron de Rosny, the future Duke of Sully, released wine exports, allowing wines to be shipped to England, Scotland, Holland and Switzerland, to the value of one and a half million crowns per year (the equivalent of his majesty's annual budget at the time). With the new regulations disallowing mixing of wine qualities in 1604, and with the help of the new agricultural organisation of Sully and Olivier de Serres, the first wines of excellence were distinguished from the “all-comers wines” from the parish.

An urgent need for royal treasury arising under Anne of Austria, in 1647 the royal intendant ordered the Jurade de Bordeaux to draw up an inventory of the wines of Guyenne so as to tax them according to their value. This list of first historical wines (in which figures Mont-Moytié, the ancestor of Léoville) proves that the Médoc already held a place of honour at that time.