From the November 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
While 1855 is a totemic date in the history of Bordeaux wine, thanks to the classification of the chateaux at the behest of Napoleon III, winemakers in the Pessac-Léognan, and in particular Graves along the left bank of the Garonne river, had been producing wine for much longer. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II of England in the 12th century brought the region under English control as well as opening up England as an export market. One of the oldest domaines in the region, the Château Pape Clément, named after Pope Clement V, was founded in 1300. Every chateau operates under the stringent rules of Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, which govern how a wine that is known as a Bordeaux is produced.
At the heart of the region is the Château Smith Haut Lafitte, founded in the 14th century. Its current owners, Florence and Daniel Cathiard, ‘like to thrive under the legal constraints’ of the appellation rules, Florence says. But that does not mean they do not innovate.
The Cathiards were both professional skiers. Florence refers to herself as a ‘slalom girl’ (‘They used to tell us to drink a glass of Bordeaux to warm up,’ she says) from the southern Alps. Daniel competed in the French team at the Winter Olympics in Grenoble in 1968; he comes from the northern Alps. Somewhere in the middle they fell in love. The couple had successful careers in retail and advertising before deciding the next challenge could be winemaking. They visited Bordeaux to look for land and found an 18th-century Carthusian monastery with overgrown vegetation and no vines.
Over 20 years, the couple transformed the vineyard, driven by a belief that they must give everything to nature ‘in reverence’. Their vineyard now covers 78 hectares, with a complicated soil composition of alluvial sand, limestone and clay on a gravel ridge. Graves has its own unique ‘Gunzian’ gravel, which reflects the sun back to the vines and provides well-drained, poor soil in which the roots of the vines can do their work. The Grand Vin is a red blend of Cabernet, Merlot and small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The exquisite and rare white wine is 90 per cent Sauvignon Blanc, blended with Sauvignon Gris and Sémillon.
Hospitality (1990), Barry Flanagan. Château Smith Haut Lafitte. Photo: Matthieu Cellard
Smith Haut Lafitte has something of the English garden about it, with nature permitted to run a little wild. The estate practises a horticultural mixing of hedges, and lets grass grow. It uses natural compost from work horses, cows and even llamas. Pest control is effected by disrupting the mating of moths, spiders are dealt with organically and bacillus subtilis is used to protect against grey mould. Harvesting is carried out by hand.
The chateau is also unusual in having its own cooperage onsite. Many of France’s oak trees, originally planted to build warships for Louis XIV, now offer ideal material for barrel staves. However, bad decisions – picking the wrong forest, toasting the wood too long, or using too much new wood – can damage a wine’s flavour. When the Cathiards arrived in the early 1990s, stave provenance, and thus quality, was difficult to guarantee, since they had to work through merrandiers (stave makers). They decided to source oak directly from the Tronçais forest in central France, south of Bourges. Since 1995 they have produced their own barrels on site. They now make 550 barrels a year to cover most of their ageing.
Among the allées, bosquets and gravel paths, the Cathiard’s collection of artworks is mixed in throughout the landscape and has a purpose to play in this organic design. Florence has bought works from galleries and commissioned artists through the years to celebrate milestones in the histories of the chateau and the family – pieces by Julian Schnabel, Mimmo Paladino and others. The first time the wine critic Robert Parker tasted the wines, after they sent him samples of the 2005 vintage, he gave them 95 points. Florence commissioned the Chinese artist Wang Du to make a sculpture that looks like a large boulder; the artist – who loved their wines – suggested a crumpled-up copy of the Wine Advocate in protest at the score not reaching 98. Ten years later, in one of the last tastings of his career, Parker re-tasted the same vintage and revised his score to 98.5.
Barry Flanagan’s statue of a leaping hare, Hospitality (1990), is at the centre of the vineyard, presiding over the oldest Cabernet Franc vines. Florence purchased it to celebrate the first vintage they released. It is one of the last two hares Flanagan made – according to Florence, he wanted to see it leap above the vines.
The artworks develop a relationship with the nature that surrounds them. Anthony Caro’s Upstand (2009), a humanoid sculpture with metal and concrete sections exposed to the elements, is now a new home for green moss and an insect’s nest. ‘We need to clean this,’ Florence notes. A connection to the organic is the foundation of this chateau, which lives by the rule that all its constituents must exist in harmony with nature and accommodate biodiversity – even the art.
From the November 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.