Bordeaux’s Château Climens Changes Owners

A change in owners is underway at one of the top wineries in Bordeaux’s Sauternes region. Bérénice Lurton has sold a majority stake in Barsac’s Château Climens to Jean-Hubert Moitry and his family for an undisclosed amount.

“Acquiring a wine estate in the Bordeaux region corresponds to a longstanding family dream with my spouse,” said Jean-Hubert Moitry, co-founder of Patrimonia Développement, a Paris-based wealth management firm. This is the family’s first investment in a winery. “My wife, Catherine, comes from a family of wine merchants from Meymac in Corrèze.”

Château Climens, classified a first-growth in the 1855 Classification of Sauternes and Barsac, has been in the Lurton family since 1971, when it was acquired by Bérénice Lurton’s father, Lucien. It holds 75 acres in a single block on the prestigious Barsac plateau, planted entirely to Sémillon. Bérénice has managed the estate for the past three decades, overseeing its transition to organic and biodynamic farming. Following the wider trend in Sauternes, she also created a dry white wine, named Asphodèle, in 2018. All of these factors influenced Moitry’s decision to acquire Climens.

“As wine lovers, we wanted to invest in an exceptional estate, with irreproachable characteristics and quality, in a perspective of family ownership and management, with a very long-term vision and ambition,” he said.

Lurton will remain at the château in an advisory role. “I am particularly glad that Jean-Hubert Moitry and his family have chosen Climens, and infinitely relieved knowing we share the same human values, the same enthusiasm and the same vision,” she said. “I have always considered myself more as the temporary guardian of Climens than as its owner, a patron in the remarkable history of the estate.”

Longtime technical director Frédéric Nivelle will also remain at Climens. And the Moitry family plans to get involved. “Jérôme, my brother, will also participate in the management of the estate, and we wish to involve our four daughters over time in this astounding project,” said Moitry.

Climens is located in a prime spot on the Barsac plateau, an ideal climate for botrytis and sweet wines. (F. Nivelle)

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