Winegrowing in Morocco has an ancient history. The first vineyard was planted by the Romans in the 2nd century.

In the mid-1950s, the vineyard was producing up to 4,500,000 hectolitres. However, production decreased and by the early 90s, it was only producing 5% of its previous volume, or 250,000 hectolitres.

It was against this background, in 1994, that Castel obtained exploitation agreements from King Hassan II for the vineyard land in the Boulaouane and later the Meknès region. Castel's aim was to restore the Moroccan vineyards to their full splendour.


Castel founded the SCVM (Société de vinification et de commercialisation des Vins du Maroc) in order to rebuild this 1050-hectare vineyard. After 4 years of hard work, the first harvests of noble varietals such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah were gathered.