Why it matters
The producer
André Lurton, born in 1924 and dead in 2019, built this group around properties with distinct addresses rather than a single château. He also directed Bordeaux’s wine trade body from 1966 to 1986 and helped establish Pessac-Léognan as its own appellation. His son Jacques took responsibility for the group in 2019, so the family name now joins a portfolio in which a Château Bonnet white and a Château de Rochemorin white carry different appellation names and different roles at the table.
The group’s history is marked by recovery as much as inheritance. Château Bonnet dates to the 16th century, entered the family when André Lurton’s grandfather Léonce Récapet acquired it in 1897, and became the group headquarters in 1953. André Lurton later acquired the neglected vineyard at Château de Rochemorin in 1973 and began restoring Château de Cruzeau in 1975. Those decisions returned working vines to old properties and expanded the range from Bonnet’s Entre-deux-Mers and Bordeaux wines into named Pessac-Léognan bottles.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
Château Bonnet provides the broad Bordeaux base. Its vineyards sit in the Entre-deux-Mers and Bordeaux appellations, where the estate makes both white and red wine; Entre-deux-Mers is attached here to the white side of the range, while Bordeaux carries wines in both colours. Rochemorin, Cruzeau and Coucheroy bring the selection into Pessac-Léognan, the Graves appellation whose separate status André Lurton helped secure. The label therefore tells more than colour: it identifies whether the bottle comes from Bonnet’s larger mixed holding or from a named Pessac-Léognan estate.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
At Château de Rochemorin, the 2022 white is made entirely from Sauvignon Blanc and includes oak ageing. A single grape keeps the wine’s fruit and acidity at the centre; oak ageing adds another element of texture and weight rather than turning it into a generic Bordeaux white. The cellar choice matters because Pessac-Léognan Sauvignon Blanc can be read through both grape and method: fresh fruit first, then the fuller feel supplied by ageing.
Château Bonnet’s plantings are divided by colour, with white vines covering the larger share of the estate and red vines the remaining 50 hectares. That arrangement supports a range in which white wine is not an afterthought, while Bonnet Rouge and the Pessac-Léognan reds can remain separate expressions rather than being treated as interchangeable claret.
Wines to know
The range in view
Château Bonnet is the wide doorway into the portfolio: white wine from its Entre-deux-Mers vineyards, plus Bordeaux wines in red and white from a 135-hectare estate. Château Bonnet Red 2021 sits on the red side of that structure, where fruit, body, tannin and ageing shape a straightforward Bordeaux red experience. Its role is breadth and daily usefulness, not the same estate-specific statement made by the Pessac-Léognan labels.
Château de Rochemorin White 2022 narrows the focus to 100% Sauvignon Blanc from Pessac-Léognan, with oak ageing adding weight to the wine’s acidity and citrus-fruit profile. Château de Cruzeau, a 60-hectare Pessac-Léognan estate restored from 1975, extends the group’s estate range in both white and red varieties. Château Coucheroy Rouge 2021 is another Pessac-Léognan red, with its own documented blend and tasting profile; it belongs beside, rather than beneath, Bonnet Rouge because it comes from a different named estate and appellation.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Start with Château de Rochemorin White 2022. It is a 100% Sauvignon Blanc from Pessac-Léognan, made at an estate André Lurton acquired and replanted in 1973 after neglect. The bottle joins a rescued vineyard to a concrete cellar decision: crisp citrus fruit and acidity meet the added body and texture of oak ageing, finishing dry. It is the most direct way into the group’s work with estate restoration, Pessac-Léognan and white Bordeaux.