A terroir ennobled by Man

Born of the bond between a great terroir and the people who have cultivated it since Roman days, the Bordeaux vineyard boasts a diversity reflected in the number of its different appellations. Within that patchwork, a hierarchy of quality has emerged over the years, endorsed by successive classifications, with the Grands Crus at the apex.

Equidistant between the North Pole and the equator, the 45th parallel offers a climate universally acknowledged as being ideal for the six thousand or so winegrowing estates of the Bordeaux region. Enhanced by the additional advantages of the nearby ocean and high-quality soil, its balanced climate makes the Bordeaux terroir naturally well-suited to vinegrowing.

In harmony with these eminently favourable characteristics, the vineyard’s dominant grape varieties – Cabernets and Merlot for the red wines, Sauvignon and Semillon for the dry and sweet whites – regularly yield grapes that have slowly reached perfect maturity.

All these natural advantages reach their culmination in the winery and in the making of fine wines. In Bordeaux, a fine wine is first of all great fruit, i.e. the natural expression of a great terroir, reflected in a simple winemaking process that has no need of artifice… The result is something unique, the revelation of that extra touch of soul, something more than the mere expression of a grape, which comes from the depths of the earth… That is the distinction of a Grand Cru.