Inauguration of the new cellar of Château Cantenac Brown

I was delighted to welcome our guests under this magnificent vaulted ceiling in our new winery. Here, we were surrounded by what we hold most precious : the barrels in which our 2023 vintage is being aged, the first to have been vinified in this new facility.

I will always have a fond memory of my first visit here at Cantenac Brown. It was three years ago. I had convinced my two brothers to embark on this adventure. Wine is, above all, a passion. But given the size of this investment, I must admit that I was afraid, had I made a mistake?

So I arrived at Cantenac Brown in the early hours of the morning with these strong emotions mixed up in my head, between excitement and apprehension. I’m arriving from Margaux by car and first I see the sea of vineyards on the Cantenac plateau, then this incredible Tudor castle that stands out from the landscape. It was a morning when there was a bridal veil: you know, that little mist that appears at dawn after a cold night. I will always remember it. I was then convinced that we had made the right choice.

I hope my brothers are now as convinced!

Yes, the one with José was decisive for me. José SANFINS joined Cantenac Brown in 1989 as an intern. He has Cantenac Brown firmly in his blood, with over 30 wonderful vintages to his credit. He has turned Cantenac Brown into the wine we enjoy between flesh and tension: fleshy and velvety with a taut final note.

You see around you walls made of compressed earth bricks. They have been lined on the outside with rammed earth walls which is compacted soil that we have tinted in three layers of compression as a tribute to wine. The natural earth walls of this winery thus have a total thickness of 1 meter. This means the thermal inertia is very high! Earth is also the only building material that naturally regulates ambient humidity. The barrels you see are kept in optimal conditions of temperature and humidity, naturally, without air conditioning.

José wanted this winery  to be a full-option tool. The latest technology is gathered here, including 4 lift tanks enabling entirely gravity-fed winemaking. We’ve increased from 30 to 70 tanks for even more precise blending during vinification.

In our busy lives, the moments of complicity we can have with my father, who was during the evening, are precious. The blending process is undoubtedly one of the highlights in the life of the estate, and every year my father and I come to attend it together, along with José and our oenologist, Eric Boissenot. And how proud we were when Eric Boissenot told us that the first wine made with this new tool exhibited exceptional aromatic power and soft tannins! At Cantenac Brown, we were already making velvety wines. Now, we are going to create lace.

Yes, I would simply like to specify that here, I wanted to place the human at the heart of the architectural project. Grape-pickers are now sheltered from the increasingly frequent heatwaves by the largest grape-picking hall ever built in Bordeaux. Natural light abundantly illuminates the entire depth of the vat room thanks to meticulous roof pleating and overhang work. The winery and vat room are laid out on a compact floor plan to facilitate the work of the winemakers at every stage of the winemaking process.

I dreamed of beauty for Cantenac Brown. I love this vault that sheltered us for the opening dinner. As you know, the barrel cellar is the space where wine matures over a long period of time. Time seems to stand still in this space, and the ambient silence was the team’s biggest surprise on first using this new tool. The Cantenac Brown’s winery is now like a temple.

It was a pleasure to welcome our clients here! The winery had a festive atmosphere, I would even say with Scottish flavour, we paid tribute to our founder John LEWIS BROWN who, with this castle Tudor wanted his piece of Scotland here in Margaux. There were many nods to Scotland.