Château Cheval Blanc

Sustainability occupies an increasingly prominent place in the public discourse of many Bordeaux châteaux, but few estates have gone as far as Cheval Blanc, publishing an 85-page manifesto for what technical director Pierre-Olivier Clouet calls “agroecology,” and rolling out cover crops, hedges and fruit trees interplanted among the vines across the whole vineyard. Monoculture is out, polyculture and biodiversity are in, and Clouet and his team are proving that this is possible even in one of Bordeaux’s most intensively farmed neighborhoods.

One of Bordeaux's most complex terroirs, Château Cheval Blanc sits on the site of an ancient river delta, with (to generalize) clay-rich soils in the lower-lying parts where rivulets once flowed and gravel and sand elsewhere. This complexity is reflected, of course, in the resulting wine, but also in how it is farmed and made, with thoughtful use of cover crops according to soil type and parcel-by-parcel vinification. A concerted effort is being made, moreover, to bring life back to the vineyard, with hedges of native species to act as wildlife corridors and fruit trees planted among the vines. The same attention to detail that's applied in the vineyards, for example with regard to developing and testing an in-house massal selection, is applied in the cellar, where cooperage trials are notable for their exigence. All of that shows in the glass, delivering one of contemporary Bordeaux’s most compelling wines, a Saint-Emilion that delivers sensuality and complexity in equal measure.