Château de Francs

Clay limestone before the cellar

Merlot leads the work for Dominique Hebrard, winemaker at Château de Francs in Francs, where the red vines sit on clay limestone and marl slopes east of Saint-Émilion. His place here began in 1985 as co-owner, after the property entered its modern period with a cellar and vat-room renewal that kept the old fortress fabric in view while giving the wine a more exact cellar. Hebrard’s broader career has moved through the Place de Bordeaux, Saint-Émilion, Lebanon, and China, with Maison Hebrard from 1983 to 2014, Château Cheval-Blanc from 1991 to 1999, Massaya Winery from 1997, Château Trianon from 2001, and consulting work at Château Shaen - Jin Sha Winery from 2013. At Francs, that experience returns to a smaller appellation with a plain demand: read the site without forcing it into Saint-Émilion dress. The estate’s origin is older than its vineyard life, set on a former fortress site with a history reaching almost 2,000 years. The wine, though, is made in the present tense, from the slopes, the tanks, the barrel room, and the decisions that follow harvest.

A Merlot program with measured oak

The red vineyard is planted to 85% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, a Right Bank frame adjusted to the Francs-Côtes de Bordeaux AOC and its clay-limestone ground. White wine comes from Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, with the estate’s white production tied to 2.5 hectares. In the cellar, fermentation for the red wine takes place in temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks, a choice that lets the fruit keep its line before élevage begins. The aging program splits the red wine between tank and barrel at 50% each, with 50% new French oak in the barrel portion. Les Cerisiers, drawn from older vines, usually follows a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, then spends 12 to 14 months in 50% new French oak barrels. Infinity, introduced in 2012, narrows the selection further: four barrels of old-vine Merlot, 100% Merlot, aged in 100% new French oak. Across the estate, production is approximately 15,000 cases per year across red and white wines, with smaller lots for Les Cerisiers and Infinity.

The cellar inside the fortress line

The first impression belongs to stone, not polish. A gate from the 1600s still marks the approach, and the estate keeps the feeling of a rural Bordeaux château rather than a designed tasting room. The cellar sits within that older line of use, where fortress memory and vat-room discipline share the same address. Around it, vineyards ring the property in the small Francs-Côtes de Bordeaux appellation, on hills that carry clay, limestone, and marl. The room is quiet by nature. Work here does not need theatre: fruit arrives from the surrounding slopes, stainless steel holds the fermenting wine, oak takes its measured share, and the older-vine lots wait separately for a stricter selection.

What the estate keeps in view

Château de Francs matters because it keeps a less-decorated corner of Bordeaux in the conversation without asking it to become somewhere else. The appellation sits east of Saint-Émilion, yet the house works from its own ground, its fortress history, and a Merlot-heavy method shaped by Hebrard’s time across Bordeaux. The next glass to understand here is not a slogan but a cellar choice: Les Cerisiers, with its 90% Merlot frame and 12 to 14 months in French oak.