Crest Castle

The Château Du Crest is a castle in the municipality of Jussy of the Canton of Geneva in Switzerland. It is a Swiss heritage site of national significance.

It is the only wine producing chateau in the left Bank of Lake Geneva in the Canton of Geneva.

History

Jussy was a vassal town of the Bishop of Geneva in the Middle Ages and the chateau was built on the grounds owned by the Bishop circa 1220. Several families such as de Compesières, and the de Rovorée clans took turns in looking after the castle as well as its domains for the Bishop who had the legal jurisdiction it.

With the advent of Reformation, the castle found itself in the middle of the intrigues between the city fathers of Geneva who dislodged the Bishop as the lord of the city state in 1536 and the Duke of Savoy. The Lord occupant of the castle, Michel de Blonay refused to abandon his Catholic faith and side with Calvinism. Several attempts at resistance followed and finally with the defeat of the Saoy Duchy in the war of Escalade in 1598, the castle was taken by the Calvinists and destroyed in the 1590s. With the Treaty of St. Julien in 1603 that recognized Geneva as a Republic, the castle fell into ruins.