Pierre Ducasse, a lawyer passionate about vine-growing, is the real founder of the estate. He bought land within three parishes: Pauillac, Saint-Lambert and Saint-Sauveur; as well as three Lord’s domains: Lafite, Latour and Beychevelle. Additional purchases and swaps enabled him to extend his estates up to his death in 1797. His son inherited the 60-hectare estate (148 acres), then called “Ducasse-Grand-Puy-Artigues-Arnaud”, of which two-thirds were planted with vine. Around 1820, he had the existing château built, on the site of his ancestors' house, facing the Gironde estuary. It was under his son-in-law’s management, Adrien Chauvet, that the estate was classified in 1855, under the name of Artigues Arnaud. The company called Grand-Puy Ducasse was then founded in 1932.

Pauillac is home to several of the world's most famous wine and the region lies in an inauspicious small village in Médoc. Pauillac sprawls over the land size of about 8.8 square miles, is highly optimised for wine production and accounts for a rather disproportionate amount of fine, expensive wine in Bordeaux.