Château Lynch-Bages
At the gates of Pauillac, the Lynch-Bages Estate 
owes part of its name to the ancient hamlet of Bages, which has been home to generations on winemakers.
The area of “Batges” is mentioned as early back as the sixteenth century in the terriers (estate records) of Lafite. The vineyard was established and then expanded by the Déjean family, one with a lineage of Pauillac dignitaries, solicitors, judges and merchants. Its great wine history began in the eighteenth century when, in 1728, it became the property of Chevalier Pierre Drouillard, Treasurer General of Guyenne, who purchased it from Bernard Déjean. Upon his death in 1749, Pierre Drouillard bequeathed the estate to his daughter, Elizabeth, who was then the wife of Thomas Lynch. The property thus passed into the Lynch family for seventy-five years.
Then known as the “Cru de Lynch”, the property was sold in 1824 to Sébastien Jurine, a wine merchant from Geneva who had newly moved to Bordeaux. Under the stewardship of his young son, André-Louis, it was classified among the Cinquièmes Crus in the prestigious 1855 Classification. In 1862, “Jurine Bages” was sold to the wine merchants and brothers Cayrou who restored the estate’s name, which has remained unchanged ever since as “Lynch-Bages”. Clearly a very wise decision…
Two generations later, the château was still in the hands of a member of the Cayrou family, General Félix de Vial. In the 1930s, he leased the vineyard to Jean-Charles Cazes, who was already in charge of Château Ormes de Pez in Saint-Estèphe. Cazes would go on to purchase both properties on the eve of the Second World War. Lynch-Bages has been run by the Cazes family ever since.
Jean-Michel Cazes was the featured Guest of Honor at l’Eté du Vin’s 1992 Auction. Today, we welcome his son Jean-Charles.