2024 Château Angélus 1e Grand Cru Classé Saint-Emilion

Michel de Boüard de Laforest, historian, chartist and rector of the Academy of Caen, researched the origins of his family. The earliest reference he found to his family tree was that of Georges Boüard, born in 1544, a Bourgeois and Jurat from the city of Bordeaux. At the end of the 18th century, in 1782, Jean de Boüard de Laforest, a bodyguard of the king, settled in Saint-Emilion. His daughter, Catherine Sophie de Boüard de Laforest, met Charles Souffrain de Lavergne in 1795 and settled on the Mazerat estate, which belonged to her husband. At the beginning of the 20th century, Maurice de Boüard de Laforest inherited the estate. He expanded it and the half kilo in 1920 with the name of a 3-hectare toe enclosure called Angélus. He left it to his sons in 1945. Jacques and Christian de Boüard de Laforest continue the work of their father and that of previous generations. The property was incorporated in 1954. They expanded it further until it exceeded 20 acres in 1985. At that time, Hubert de Boüard de Laforest, son of Jacques, took over the management of the estate and was joined in 1987 by his cousin Jean-Bernard Grenié, son-in-law of Christian and later his daughter, Stéphanie de Boüard- Rivul in 2012.

The vineyard of Château Angélus is located in a natural amphitheater overlooking the three Saint-Emilion churches. In the middle of this special place, the sounds were amplified and the angel bells in the morning, afternoon and evening. They travel the working day in the rhythm in the surrounding villages and the men and women who take a few minutes to stop working and pray. The great French Impressionist painter Jean-François Millet immortalized this moment of prayer in his magnificent work "The Angelus", now on display at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Less than a kilometer from the famous bell tower of Saint-Emilion, situated at the acclaimed 'foot of the hill' facing south, Angélus has been the life's work of eight generations of the Boüard de Laforest family. In the probable classification of Saint-Emilion wines in 1954, Château Angélus was a Grand Cru Classé. Already at that time it benefited from a solid reputation, which gave rise to the Bordeaux wine crisis of 1973 and participated in the oenological renewal of the 1980s. In this context, Hubert de Boüard de Laforest, graduate oenologist at the University of Bordeaux, took advantage of past of this wonderful wine, while resolutely focusing on the future strategy and developing and pursuing an ambitious and innovative policy to achieve excellence in viticulture and making.