A Polo Ground Shared the Estate of a Classified Growth. Giscours Was Shaped by More Than Vines

The Old Stables at Château Giscours were built in the 1830s for draught horses. From the 1970s until the end of the 1990s, however, they became a base for polo horses, equipment, and players. The estate also had a dedicated ground that is still called the former polo field.

This was not simply a sports facility placed on spare land at a classified growth. Giscours has long operated its vines, château, winery, park, forest, farms, meadows, and stables as one estate. The polo ground is evidence that this was more than a single building where wine was made. It was a broad domain in which people worked, raised crops and animals, and gathered.

From the House of "Guyscoutz" to a Classified Vineyard

The official history traces buildings on this site to the fourteenth century. Its development as a wine estate becomes clear in 1552, when the Bordeaux cloth merchant Pierre de Lhomme acquired the house called "Guyscoutz," assembled land around it, and planted the first vines. Today's Giscours did not begin as a completed château. It began with the process of joining land and reorganising its uses.

Marc Promis, owner from 1825 to 1847, restored the vineyard and built facilities including the draught-horse stables in the 1830s. Jean-Pierre Pescatore acquired Giscours in 1847, engaged Pierre Skawinski, and undertook major work in the vineyard and winery. The official history of the winery connects this work to Giscours entering the Third Growths in 1855.

The nineteenth-century landscape visible today cannot, however, be credited to only one owner. The official château page describes the periods of Promis, Pescatore, and Cruse together: the residence became a neoclassical palace, production buildings were modernised, and a park and farms were formed. Classification was one milestone within this longer construction.

A Park, Two Farms, and Polo

Édouard Cruse, who led the estate from 1875, developed a park by landscape designer Eugène Bühler and the model farm known as Suzanne Farm. The French Ministry of Culture's architectural record says that expansion between 1875 and 1881 produced the park and two model farms, Suzanne and Camille, and that a landscaped park with a watercourse was completed in the late nineteenth century.

Another article on the château's official site dates the park design to 1850, so the official dates do not agree. This page therefore places the work in the later nineteenth century and retains only the secure elements. Water lay in front of the residence, with forest, meadows, and farms beyond. The shape of Giscours came from designing the estate as a whole rather than isolating its vineyards.

That arrangement later accommodated sport. The Old Stables served polo from the 1970s until the end of the 1990s, storing equipment and supporting practice and post-match gatherings. The former ground has been used for cricket since 2007 and hosted its first grass showjumping competition in 2021. The sport changed, but the use of a large open field for estate activities continued.

From Post-war Reorganisation to a Dutch Family

In 1952, after the Second World War, Nicolas Tari began reconstruction and reorganised the estate's full three hundred hectares. This was not the vineyard area alone. It was the scale of a domain including agricultural land and buildings, another reason not to understand Giscours simply as a large vineyard.

Eric Albada Jelgersma, from the Netherlands, acquired Giscours in 1995 and restructured the vineyard and operational buildings. After his death in 2018, his three children Dennis, Derk, and Valérie continued as owners, while Alexander van Beek, who had been on site since 1995, remained general manager. The official 2025 technical sheet likewise names the Albada Jelgersma family as president and van Beek as general manager.

The second wine, La Sirène de Giscours, takes its name from the mermaid emblem that first appeared on a label in 1900. Like the polo ground, it was added in a later period and remained as part of the estate's memory. From the sixteenth-century house to the nineteenth-century park, the twentieth-century sports ground, and today's family leadership, Giscours has always extended beyond the boundary of its vines.

Three Facts Worth Knowing

• The Old Stables and field were used for polo from the 1970s until the end of the 1990s. The former ground is now also used for cricket and showjumping.
• Nineteenth-century Giscours was developed to include a park, watercourse, and two model farms, not only the château. The Ministry of Culture dates the principal expansion to 1875–1881.
• Eric's three children are the current owners, with Alexander van Beek as general manager. The official 2025 material confirms this structure.