Guillaume Pouthier & Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion

‘What’s next? I am still maturing, ageing my ideas like wine’ --------------------------- Guillaume Pouthier

New winemaking techniques

Real estate entrepreneur Patrice Pichet bought pretty Château Les Carmes Haut-Brion in 2010, and set the estate, situated inside the Bordeaux city limits, on a quietly revolutionary path. The château is surrounded by a lovely park with a lake and vines, but the most visible part of its new life is the sleek, boat-shaped cellar that looks like it’s floating in an ornamental pond, accessed by footbridges. Designed by Philippe Starck, it’s supposed to symbolise Bordeaux’s maritime history.

But I only understood what’s behind the serious improvement in the wines by talking to intense, charismatic technical director Guillaume Pouthier, whom Pichet hired from Rhône powerhouse Chapoutier.

In 2012, Pouthier introduced the idea of putting whole bunches of grapes, stems and all, in the fermentation vats: something we associate with Burgundy. He says it works because the vineyard is mainly Cabernet Franc on clay and limestone.

Pouthier aims for wines with bright aromas and a wider span of drinkability, which led him to another innovation: using infusion rather than extraction with pumpovers during fermentation. This gentle, hands-off method, he says, creates softer tannins, while ageing wines 10% in clay amphorae, begun in 2015, helps give the wines energy.

Fresh and complex, with a wonderful silky texture, the wines speak for the success of the techniques. What’s next? ‘I am still maturing, ageing my ideas like wine,’ says Pouthier.