Château Haut-Batailley is based just south of the village of Pauillac, where it marks the symbolic entrance to the appellation with its iconic Tour l’Aspic—the slender stone tower that has long stood as a landmark among the Médoc’s gravel slopes. A classified Fifth Growth under the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855, the estate embodies both history and renewal within Pauillac’s storied landscape.
The property’s current form dates to 1942, when the original Château Batailley was divided into two separate estates—Batailley and Haut-Batailley—each continuing its own line from the same ancestral lands. For decades, the Borie family oversaw Haut-Batailley’s production, crafting refined, classically structured Pauillac that emphasized balance and purity. In 2017, a new ambitious chapter began when the Cazes family, proprietors of Châteaux Lynch-Bages and Ormes de Pez, purchased the estate.
Jean-Charles Cazes and technical director Nicolas Labenne have since invested heavily in both vineyard and cellar, aligning Haut-Batailley with the precision and sustainability philosophy that defines their other estates. The vineyard extends over 41 hectares of deep Garonne gravel soils—an archetype of Pauillac’s terroir. When the Cazes family took over in 2017, only 22 hectares were under vine, with 19 hectares of AOC-classified land remaining unplanted since the phylloxera era. Following a comprehensive soil and microterroir study, a three-year replanting program commenced in 2018, resulting in a doubling of the vineyard’s surface area by 2021.
The vines lie in the southern reaches of Pauillac, bordering Saint-Julien, where subtle variations in gravel depth and clay content produce wines that balance Pauillac’s firm structure with the supple texture often associated with its southern neighbor. Plantings are composed of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and a small proportion of Petit Verdot.
