Chateau Balac

   
Located in Médoc · France

Château Balac, classified Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, is the domain of the Touchais family, which took over the 10-hectare Haut-Médoc vineyard back in 1964. 

When winemaker Joseph Touchais bought the estate, in the heart of a 200-hectare forest a few kilometres from Pauillac, it was something of a wreck – the buildings were in ruins and the vines had disappeared. After careful rebuilding, Joseph’s son Luc took over the management in 1973, expanding the estate’s size and replanting and restoring the land.

The current manager Lionel Touchais, son of Luc, became the latest member of the family to run the winery when he took over in 2005. After training as an oenologist in Bordeaux and spending 10 years travelling the world as a winemaker, he was delighted to return to the family’s land where he now lives with his wife Amélie and their two children Léon and Joseph. His goals here are to continue to maintain traditions, to enhance the terroir further and to complete the conversion to organic farming that he started back in 2019.