With Bordeaux wine prices shooting into the stratosphere these days, it is nice to find a producer that recognises that quality doesn’t necessarily equal expense. A château that puts its consumer first, Château Lanessan is a pocket-friendly, wine investor’s dream come true.

A fine Bordelaise history dating from 1793, Château Lanessan has been in the same family for eight generations, direct descendants of the founder Jean Bouteiller. Situated in the heart of Haut-Médoc, bordering Saint Julien, the domaine has grown from its “humble” 24-hectares to the 380-hectares estate that it is today. However, just 32-hectares are given over to vineyards. The rest of the land is used for Château Lanessan’s other activity, stables and horse-riding. The Château itself was built by prominent local architect Herni Duphot between 1878 and 1887, with the stables being added a few years later. These were incredibly grand and included running water (when many houses in the village were still hand-drawing from wells), marble troughs and brass fixtures. Today, Lanessan specialises in horse-drawn carriage rides around the estate; ten carriages are kept in working order including a Phaeton from 1884.

However, it is the wine that interests us here, and Château Lanessan has carved a niche for reasonably priced Bordeaux wine underscored by generations of savoir-faire. Self-styled as a “grand cru sans classement” as Bouteillier thought it unnecessary to submit his grapes to the great 1855 ranking, Lanessan missed out on what would surely have been a fourth position. Planted with 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, 4% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc in gravelly terroir, the wines are vinified in concrete vats and aged in a mixture of new and one and two-year-old (French) oak barrels. Wines are temperature controlled throughout.

In order to maintain their status and increase quality, Hubert de Bouard (owner of Château Angelus) joined the estate’s management team in 2015. This saw a marked rise in the wine’s value on the secondary market. This is perhaps the most interesting recent vintage for the estate from an investor’s point of view, although the 2010 showed fantastic ROI between September 2017 and May 2019. Prices are still well below the average for Bordeaux wines.