Skip to content
WineHQ
Search

Appellation · France

Listrac-Médoc

The highest and most inland of the Médoc communal appellations, on limestone rather than deep gravel.

Listrac-Médoc AOCmaritimemoderate
What to expect in the glass

Dry, firm, medium-bodied red with red and black fruit and a distinctly savoury, earthy finish. Straightforward rather than complex, and priced accordingly.

About Listrac-Médoc

Listrac sits on the Médoc’s highest ground, about 43 metres above sea level, which sounds trivial and is not: it puts the commune furthest from the estuary’s moderating influence and on limestone rather than gravel.

The wines are consequently the most rustic of the communal appellations — firm, dry, sometimes lean, with Merlot taking the leading share to compensate for the cooler ground.

Warmer growing seasons have suited Listrac. Conditions that overripen fruit on the deep gravels of Pauillac have brought the commune’s reds into balance more often than they used to be.

What the name means

Legal name
Listrac-Médoc AOC
Type
Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée / Protégée (AOC / AOP)
Set by
INAO
Regulates
Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.

The delimited area, permitted varieties, maximum yields, minimum alcohol, pruning and training methods, and in many cases minimum ageing. Administered by INAO.

Grapes

Wines from here

red

Red Bordeaux

The blended Cabernet–Merlot benchmark: structured, cedary and built to age, with two distinct characters depending on which bank of the river it comes from.

Soil and geology

Underlying geology
A limestone outcrop — the highest ground in the Médoc
Soils
Limestone and clay, with gravel on the western ridges
Drainage
Moderate
Water holding
High

What it does to the vine. Cool, water-retentive limestone and clay slow ripening relative to the gravel communes. Merlot handles those conditions better than Cabernet Sauvignon, which is why it takes the larger share here.

WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.

Rules worth knowing

Confirmed in the EU register

Listrac-Médoc is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-FR-A0276, protected at EU level since 1973.

Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013

Specification published: Official Journal C, C/2026/1017, 17.2.2026 · Official Journal

Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.

The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

Red Bordeaux

Serve at 16–18°C (cool room temperature).

Try with steak, lamb or roast beef.

Where to go next

Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.

  • Moulis-en-Médoc — The smallest Médoc communal appellation, set back from the estuary, with no classified growths and some genuinely serious wine.
  • Haut-Médoc — The southern two-thirds of the peninsula, and the appellation used by everything in it that is not inside one of the six communal names.

Sources

Sources consulted