TASTING NOTES BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY As Château-Figeac transitions from its old Bordeaux style to suit the modern palate, the venerable Right Bank estate remains an institution // By Guy Woodward COURTESY CHÂTEAU-FIGEAC 70 NetJets
FAMILY PRIDE From top: owners Blandine de Brier Manoncourt and Marie-France Manoncourt, with estate manager Frédéric Faye; a 2016 vintage Facing page: Château-Figeac WHEN CHÂTEAU-FIGEAC WAS upgraded to the very top rank of St-Emilion châteaux in the region’s 2022 classification, the estate’s owners put out a pointed statement. “The Manoncourt family and the entire team have a special thought for Thierry Manoncourt, who ardently wished to see Figeac ‘in the right place’,” it read. Thierry Manoncourt was a shining light in a Bordeaux firmament not short of stars. A prisoner of war in Germany, he joined the family business in 1947; by the time of his death in 2010, aged 92, he had overseen 64 vintages at the property. While unafraid to innovate (Figeac was the first classed growth on the Right Bank to introduce stainlesssteel tanks, and one of the first to offer tastings to visitors), Manoncourt was unashamedly traditionalist when it came to the wine itself. Those 64 vintages he oversaw lent him the confidence and experience not to be swayed by the whims of fashion but instead stay true to a style that was less about immediate flamboyance and more about the gradual unfurling of complexity. Château-Figeac is unusual in its make-up. Three warm gravel ridges run across the 40ha vineyard surrounding the château, meaning the terroir has more in common with the Médoc, on Bordeaux’s Left Bank, than the limestone-clay of the Right Bank. To suit such soils, the breakdown of grape varieties – roughly a third each of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot (which tends to dominate most St-Emilion properties, lending the appellation’s signature smooth texture) – is also more Médocain, providing the structure and distinctive “old Bordeaux” style that allows for Figeac’s prodigious ageing. This unshowy but durable style reflected not only the estate’s particular terroir but also Manoncourt himself. Sadly for him, however, unlike in the Médoc, with its intractable 1855 ranking of classed growths, the classification in St- Emilion has been regularly updated since the first edition in 1955 (with associated controversy and blood-letting). Figeac’s misfortune was that these updates were not decided on the quality of wines at the 10, 20 and 30 years of age at which they were intended to be drunk. Instead, younger wines were tasted, while other factors including the price and profile of estates was also taken into account. And at a time when LEIF CARLSSON VIRGINIE OHRENSSTEIN NetJets 71
