Lafite Was Originally a Word Unrelated to Wine. How Did It Become a Name at Court and Pass from One Family to Another?

The first Bordeaux Chateau Story traced the origins of the five First Growths. The section on Lafite Rothschild noted only that a wine once discussed at court returned, a century later, to the hands of a distantly related family. This time, we follow the years carried by that single name more carefully, from its origin to the present head of the estate.

How a Name Meaning “Hill” Became a Subject at Court

The name Lafite originally had nothing to do with wine. According to the château’s own history, it comes from the Gascon expression la hite, meaning a small hill. The name of the land already appears in a record from 1234 and, from the 14th century onward, in documents describing a medieval fief. Before it was a wine’s name, it was the name of a place.

That name reached courtly conversation in the 18th century. In 1755, Marshal de Richelieu, newly appointed Governor of Bordeaux, is said to have brought wine from the estate to the court at Versailles. This is remembered as the event that brought Lafite into courtly conversation. Another anecdote from the same era tells of a marquise who lost a bid for a Burgundy vineyard to the Prince de Conti, after which the vineyard came to be called “Romanée-Conti.” Its truth is uncertain, a small legend born from the rivalries of court.

The Ségur Era, When Lafite and Latour Were One

Looking further back into Lafite’s history reveals an unexpected fact: for a time, the estate and neighboring Château Latour were controlled by the same family.

In the late 17th century, Jacques de Ségur began developing the vineyards at Lafite. In 1695, his son Alexandre de Ségur married Marie-Thérèse de Clauzel, heiress to Latour. Through this marriage, Lafite and Latour came temporarily into the hands of one family.

When Alexandre died in 1716, his son, the Marquis Nicolas-Alexandre de Ségur, later remembered as the “Prince of the Vines,” held both estates in a single generation and also brought Mouton and Calon-Ségur under the family’s control. For a time, four châteaux, including three of today’s five First Growths, Lafite, Latour, and Mouton, were held by one family.

After the marquis died in 1755, those holdings began to separate. A century later, in the 1855 Classification, Lafite and Latour were ranked First Growth, Mouton Second Growth, and Calon-Ségur Third Growth. From a later perspective, the appearance of four estates once united by one family in different tiers of the classification has endured as a remarkable coincidence.

From 1868 to the Present: the Rothschild Family and the First Woman to Lead the Estate

After leaving the Ségur family, Lafite passed through the hands of several owners and encountered the turmoil of the French Revolution. Then, in 1868, Baron James de Rothschild won Lafite at an auction in Paris. He died three months after the purchase, but the estate passed jointly to his three sons: Alphonse, Gustave, and Edmond.

In the 20th century, Baron Élie de Rothschild, a great-grandson of James, led the château’s revival beginning in 1946. His nephew, Baron Éric de Rothschild, took over management in the 1970s. In April 2018, Éric’s daughter, Saskia de Rothschild, succeeded her father at the head of the estate, becoming both its youngest leader and the first woman to hold the position.

Today, about one third of the château’s production is released as its second wine, Carruades de Lafite. The name comes from the Carruades plateau beside the château’s hill, a group of parcels acquired in 1845. A story that began with the name of a hill continues to create new names even now.

Three Facts Worth Knowing

• “Lafite” was originally not a wine name but a place name, derived from a Gascon expression meaning “small hill.”
• Lafite and Latour were temporarily brought under the control of the same Ségur family through a marriage in 1695.
• Saskia de Rothschild became the youngest and the first woman to lead Lafite when she succeeded her father in 2018.

With these three facts, Lafite Rothschild becomes more than a position in a classification.