Thierry has been in charge of the chai here since 1995, & will continue to make the wine for some years to come, now passing on his knowledge & technique to Marine & Romik.

Thierry was maître de chai and winemaker at Château Cheval Blanc from 1988 – 2018, and responsible for such 100 point legends as the '90, '98, '00, '03, '05, '06, '08, '10, '15 & '16 His savoir-faire and talent is undisputed.

Thierry lovingly crafts the Grand Vin and our new creation, Cuve 8a, wine with the same passion & alchemy that he had at Cheval Blanc, the wines share the same ‘iron fist in velvet glove’ structure & sensuality.

His methods are clearly his own; but the premise is one of letting the vines and the grapes do the talking, with minimal intervention, and according to traditional methods.

Core to his beliefs is that wines should not be too heavy, concentrated or extracted, and avoiding many modern practises which can lead to over alcoholic, ‘heady’ wines.

We aim for wines that are delicious, drinkable & complex;
representative of both terroir and vintage, they are singular, original & unmistakeable.

We vinify in traditionally equipped, excellent quality cement cuves.
These differ in size, corresponding to the parcels they represent - from our smallest at 44 hectolitres (1 hectolitre = 100 litres = 133 bottles) all the way up to 150 hectolitres.

Vinification generally takes place over a 15 to 18 day period, with three ‘remontages’ per day: gently pumping the wine from one concrete tank to another. This careful technique optimises the wine's contact with the grape skins, ensuring it doesn't become too jammy or overly extracted.

Post vinification, we select around 35% to be aged in new, one or two year old 500 litre French oak barrels, from master Tonneliers, Sylvain, Demptos & Taransaud.

We taste through all the different barrels, regularly assessing their progress.

We then perform trial ‘assemblages’ - the process of blending the different lots to create the best possible version of our sensational terroir.

After around 20 months of ageing, the wines are gently bottled. Ready to be labelled and capsuled on demand, so they arrive in perfect condition to your door...