Château
A château (French pronunciation: [ʃɑto]; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions.
For other uses, see Château (disambiguation).Nowadays, a château may be any stately residence built in a French style; the term is additionally often used for a winegrower's estate, especially in the Bordeaux region of France.[1]
French châteaux—particular regions[edit]
Bordeaux region[edit]
There are many estates with true châteaux on them in the Bordeaux wine regions, but it is customary for any wine-producing estate since the 19th century, no matter how humble, to prefix its name with "Château". This term became the default way of designating an estate in Bordeaux, in the same way that Domaine did in Burgundy. Both Château and Domaine are aristocratic in implication, but Bordeaux had a better claim to the association: nobles had owned Bordeaux's best vineyards for centuries. Most of Burgundy's best vineyards, in contrast, had been owned by the Church. The term Château became a permanent verbal fixture in Bordeaux, and it was emulated in other French regions and outside France.[8]
