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Key figures

Origin and history

The Château de Bergin is a 14th century fortified house in the Savoie department, in the commune of Saint-Jean-de-Chevelu. Originally, it was the heart of Bergin's seigneury, possession of the eponymous family. Jacques de Bergin, notary at Yenne in 1314, and Étienne de Bergin, who received fiefs in 1343, were the first certified owners. The fief then passed to the Drujon, a noble family from Belley, who kept it until the 19th century.

Over the centuries, the castle underwent several architectural changes, notably in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The current structure, organised around an inner courtyard, combines original defensive elements (semicircular tower, crossbow) and posterior additions such as doors in the middle of the skin. The Drujon, lords of the place, marked the places of their coat of arms and lived there until the extinction of their lineage. In the mid-19th century, the property was owned by the Jacquins and then the Percevaux in 1952, who developed a vineyard in AOC.

The castle, always private and not open to the public, preserves traces of its medieval past, such as a lintel window in arms or an ogival door. The adjacent agricultural buildings, with architectural details (e.g. badge door, ornate lintel), testify to its evolution in wine-growing. Today, cultivated grape varieties (Jacquère, Highness, Gamay, Mondeuse) are marketed under the label Château de Bergin, perpting its historical and economic heritage.

The castle's coat of arms, "of azure with three mountains of gold tidy in fascist, moving from the point, and with three nascent blades of the same", recalls its seigneurial status. The archives mention prominent members of the Drujon, such as Philibert, lieutenant of the invalids of Montmélian (1754), or Charles-Antoine, last non-emigrant representative in 1797. The transmission of the domain, via marriage alliances, illustrates the social dynamics of the Savoyard nobility throughout the epochs.

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