In the middle of the 17th century, Arnaud Ducasse bought a small house, on the banks of the Gironde estuary, to Jacques de Ségur, Seigneur of Lafite. He could hardly had imagined then that it would be the start of a superb estate that would remain in his family for almost three centuries. Pierre Ducasse, a lawyer passionate about vine-growing, is the real founder of the estate. He bought land within three parishes: Pauillac, Saint-Lambert and Saint-Sauveur; as well as three Lord’s domains: Lafite, Latour and Beychevelle.
Additional purchases and swaps enabled him to extend his estates up to his death in 1797.
His son inherited the 60-hectare estate (148 acres), then called “Ducasse-Grand-Puy-Artigues-Arnaud”, of which two-thirds were planted with vine. Around 1820, he had the existing château built, on the site of his ancestors’ house, facing the Gironde estuary. It was under his son-in-law’s management, Adrien Chauvet, that the estate was classified in 1855, under the name of Artigues Arnaud. The company called Grand-Puy Ducasse was then founded in 1932.
The vineyard’s 40 hectares (99 acres) are divided between three main plots which lie on sandy Garonne gravel within the Pauillac appellation.
The vines border those of Mouton, Lafite and Pontet-Canet to the North. In their central part, they cover part of the Bourdieu of Grand Puy, and, at their southern extremity, the Saint-Lambert plateau.
With an average age of 25 years, 62% of the vines are Cabernet Sauvignon and 38% Merlot.
Average yields are 40 hectolitres per hectare.
