Château Bottling

château bottling, the relatively recent practice of bottling the produce of a château on that property. Such a wine is said to be château bottled, or mis(e) en bouteille au château in French, an expression used throughout France but particularly in bordeaux. (Its counterpart in burgundy is domaine bottled, while in the new world the term estate bottled is often used.)

Initially all wine was sold in bulk, and subsequently it was up to the merchants, whether in the region of consumption or production, to put the wine into bottle. Even as recently as the mid 20th century, the great majority of wine left the property on which it was produced in barrels. adulteration and fraud was therefore all too easy among less scrupulous merchants, and particularly tempting in the wake of the world wine shortages which followed powdery mildew and phylloxera at the end of the 19th century.