The Park and the Forest

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marc verpaalen

Director of Hospitality and Events

Presents the park and the forest

What makes Giscours magical is its immense size. Behind the Chateau,
a magnificent park alongside an impressive forest stands open for visitors to enjoy a stroll in the great outdoors.

An unspoiled place to stroll

Barely visible from the estate entrance and hidden behind the Chateau, a vast park planted with rare species and scattered with water features is available for walkers to enjoy. An 800-metre route has been designed so that visitors can admire the exceptional flora and fauna.
You will discover more than twenty different varieties of tree and species from all over the world: monkey puzzle trees, giant sequoias, sassafras, quercus nigras (‘black oaks’), Oregon pines, bald cypresses and more.

This is the perfect place for a Sunday stroll with family, a walk after a wine tourism tour, or a picnic for two. It is hard to believe that such a calm, natural spot is just a few kilometres from Bordeaux.

Picnic in Giscours park

A park as a work of art

Designed in 1870 by Eugène Bühler, a renowned landscape architect who was also responsible for creating the famous Parc Bordelais. This graduate of the Ecole Royale d’Horticulture in Versailles shaped the park like a work of art.

Other artistic surprises also await… The patinated bronze sculpture ‘Salto’ by Nic Jonk is perfectly located by the Lesclause stream. Not far away, and similarly integrated into the landscape, is ‘The Bather’ by Carla Rutgers-Hendriksen. Follow this route and you will discover the spectacular ‘Spectacles’ looking at the chateau: a fun tribute to the estate’s owner Eric Albada Jelgersma, a visionary businessman and art collector.

The vast Giscours park and the forest

Immerse
yourself
in
nature

Natural fauna

As well as this rich flora, the park and forest are also home to birds and insects that you will come across and spot as you walk: kingfishers, moorhens, little egrets, Eurasian hoopoes, wood pigeons, European green woodpeckers, great cormorants, grey herons, red admiral butterflies, and honey bees. All roam freely and are not particularly shy. An incredible ecosystem full of inhabitants that have all made this magnificent location their home.

Recently, the park welcomed 13 geese and some thirty-odd ducks, in order to preserve biodiversity and bring these spaces to life.
It is not unusual to see Cécile, the farming manager, shepherding the sixty Landes ewes that naturally maintain the park’s vegetation.

A harvest site

Benjamin Laurent, head chef, also comes here at certain times of year to pick porcini mushrooms, which can then be found in the dishes served at La Table de Giscours. To ensure short channels, these mushrooms are also cooked and stored in jars so that they can be enjoyed all year round!

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Who participates in the life of the Park?

Marc VERPAALEN

A favourite wine

Château Giscours

Vintage 2005

The men of Giscours are the worthy heirs of this tradition, which is inseparable from the great wines of the Médoc. A young and dynamic team has been able, for several years, to combine this ancestral know-how with the most modern techniques: permanent care given to the vineyard throughout the seasons, hand harvesting which is the object of all the attention, plot selection constantly refined thanks to important investments in the vineyard...

Interview