History of the estate
Château Les Carrasses was built in 1886 by the de-Zelicourt family, a noble family from Toulouse. They commissioned renowned Bordeaux architect Louis-Michel Garros to construct a modern estate on their lands in the commune of Quarante. Garros responded in typical eclectic style with Les Carrasses, which emerged as an important estate, producing around 700,000 litres of mostly red wine per year.
The turn of the century proved to be the highpoint, with overproduction and cheap imports of wine from Algeria soon causing prices to collapse. A clean water supply, two world wars, changing tastes and the emergence of New World wines brought waves of competitive pressure to bear on the industry. Les Carrasses, like many others, gradually declined into stately moribundity, continuing to produce as it always had, but selling into an indifferent market, which oversaw its gradual decline.
Despite the economic challenges the Château remained in the de-Zelicourt family until 2008 when it was sold to Karl O’Hanlon and Anita Forte, who were looking for an estate to transform into a rural retreat. The transformation of the Château and the outbuildings took three years, when production was moved to the modern facility at nearby Domaine de Cibadies, with the current incarnation of the estate opening its doors to visitors in 2011.