The Cellar Hour
95 per guestAn hour beneath the house with the cellar master. Four wines drawn from barrel and bottle, bread and salt on the table.
- Four wines
- Sixty minutes
- Six guests
Estate bottled, Saint Émilion
Two centuries
of one hillside
Thirty four hectares of clay and limestone, farmed by one family since 1782. We make one wine a year, and in the years the hillside does not agree, we make none.
The house
The wine is made in the vineyard, in a cellar that has not been rebuilt since the second empire, by people who will hand it to their children. Everything else is decoration.
The vintages
Every year
speaks for itself
Four releases currently in the cellar. Notes are written by the cellar master at bottling and are not revised afterwards, which is how you can tell they are honest.
2021
Grand Vin
Drink from 2028 through 2045
A cool year that asked for patience and rewarded it
Graphite and violet on the nose, then dark cherry, cedar and a long saline finish. The tannin is fine and tightly wound. It will unspool slowly.
The blend
Cabernet Sauvignon62%
Merlot30%
Cabernet Franc8%
The terroir
Clay, limestone,
and a long slow slope
The hillside falls south and west from a limestone bench that holds water in a dry year and drains it in a wet one. The oldest parcels were planted in 1946 and have never been pulled. They give very little fruit and all of the character.
Everything is picked by hand into small crates, sorted twice, and moved by gravity. The cellar is cold and quiet and the wine spends eighteen months in French oak, a third of it new.
0Hectares under vine
0The first harvest
0Months in French oak
Private tastings
Sit with the wine
where it was made
The estate receives a small number of guests each week, by appointment. Prices are per person and include everything poured.
Vines and Table
220 per guestA walk through the limestone bench at the top of the estate, then lunch in the orangery with six vintages poured beside it.
- Six wines
- Three hours
- Eight guests
The Private Vertical
480 per guestTen vintages of the Grand Vin, poured in silence, in the room where they were made. By arrangement only.
- Ten wines
- Half a day
- Four guests
The allocation list
The wine is offered
before it is released
Each spring the estate writes to the list with the coming vintage, the quantity available, and the price. There is no ballot and no auction. The list moves in the order people joined it.
0Cases in a good year
0Percent goes to the list
Join the list
The 2022 offer opens in April
City and country
Three, six or twelve
We write once a year, in the spring. Nothing else, ever.