The Fairytale Twin-Towered Château Has Another Face: Why Did the Pichon Family Split into Two Names, "Baron" and "Comtesse"?

Walking through the vineyards of Pauillac, you come upon a château crowned with two small towers on its roof — a silhouette that could have stepped straight out of a picture-book castle. This is Château Pichon Longueville Baron, known today as Château Pichon Baron.

But the story does not end there. In the same Pauillac appellation stands another château that shares almost the same name, yet calls itself not "Baron" but "Comtesse." Both must once have belonged to a single family line. Why, then, did they come to be divided into two names? The answer traces back to a family inheritance more than 170 years ago, and to a single château built the year after.

It Began with a Marriage

In 1689, a man named Pierre Desmezures de Rauzan purchased a plot facing Latour and established a vineyard he named Enclos Rauzan. He was a Bordeaux wine merchant who served as manager of Latour and Margaux, and who would later also give rise to Rauzan-Ségla and Rauzan-Gassies.

Five years later, in 1694, the marriage of Rauzan's daughter Thérèse to Jacques de Pichon Longueville brought Enclos Rauzan into the Pichon Longueville family estate as her dowry. This is the direct origin of today's Pichon Baron. For more than a century and a half thereafter, the estate was passed down within a single family line under the one name "Pichon Longueville."

A Family Divided by Inheritance, a Memory Carved in Twin Towers

The turning point came in 1849. The estate's owner, Joseph de Pichon Longueville, passed away, and the following year, 1850, the estate was divided among his five children through inheritance. Here, the single family line split onto two paths: one became the "Baron" line, and the other would later become known as "Comtesse de Lalande."

The year after the division, in 1851, Raoul Jacques Albert Paulin de Pichon Longueville, who inherited the Baron line, built the present château with its twin towers — as if to carve the story of a family split in two into stone.

What is striking is what happened four years later, when the classification for the 1855 Paris Exposition was completed. The list did not yet contain the word "Baron." What was recorded was a single Second Growth entry under the pre-division name, "Pichon Longueville." It would be a little while longer before the system caught up with the family's division.

Under AXA Millésimes, to the Present

In 1987, AXA Millésimes, under the leadership of Claude Bébéar, acquired the château from the Bouteiller family and appointed Jean-Michel Cazes to oversee it. From 2001, Christian Seely has served as his successor as managing director, and continues in the position today. On the winemaking side, Pierre Montégut became technical director in 2022. Alexandra Lebossé, who joined the château in 1999, has served as Winemaker overseeing production since 2017.

The current second wine is not limited to a single label. Two names are carried forward side by side: Les Griffons de Pichon Baron, produced from gravel plots along the Gironde and built around Cabernet Sauvignon (from the 2012 vintage), and Les Tourelles de Pichon Baron, based mainly on Merlot from the Sainte-Anne plot (formerly Les Tourelles de Longueville, from the 1986 vintage, renamed to its current title from the 2023 vintage).

Three Facts Worth Knowing

• The present twin-towered château was built in 1851. This was immediately after the division of the inheritance the year before, in 1850 — architecture that carves the story of a divided family.
• In the original 1855 Classification list, the word "Baron" did not yet appear. The estate was recorded as a single line under its pre-division name, "Pichon Longueville."
• Two second wines exist side by side. Les Griffons de Pichon Baron (from the 2012 vintage) and Les Tourelles de Pichon Baron (formerly Les Tourelles de Longueville, from the 1986 vintage, renamed from the 2023 vintage).