Château Figeac 2019, Premier Grand Cru Classé B, in Saint-Émilion was voted the best wine from the entire prestigious wine-making region of Saint Émilion to the west of Bordeaux in a recent dégustation “en primeur”. As a result it outshone Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Pavie, and Angélus – all 4 top Premier Grand Crus Classé A. The unique Figeac winery therefore confirmed the quality of the 2019 vintage, and indeed the long rising standard of cultivation over the past 50 years.
A new, modern facility for the processing, maturation, storage, and distribution of wine was recently built in close proximity to the elegant château, with its 18th century façade and its perfect, refined lines. The tasteful and intelligently designed work of architecture satisfies all 3 requirements made by the owners of the estate: to create an unflamboyant and functional building of the highest standard using refined traditional materials and architecture that respects the “genius loci”. The building tastefully follows on from the original architecture of the château complex and copies the curve of the sloping terrain, without assuming the dominant position, even though it covers an area of more than 5,000 sqm. The area of the facility had to be tripled in size to be able to satisfy the needs of precise, separate processing of grapes from different tracts, with the terrain meaning that 2/3 of the structure is underground. Forty-eight new tanks of differing sizes were installed to order, a research laboratory, high-capacity cellars for barrels, and most of the technical facilities. A canteen, offices, and a reception were built above-ground, together with a beautiful tasting and reception room that is entirely in keeping with Figeac’s traditional hospitality, situated with an imposing view of the vineyards through large areas of glass. The building, which cost EUR 15 million, is half visible and half inconspicuous, discreet on the surface and expansive underground, perfectly equipped and furnished, and built so as to be able to last at least another fifty years.
A bit of history
The Figeac estate stands to the west of the little town of Saint-Émilion, on the edge of Pomerol. The château is surrounded by a park of 20 hectares in size, an arboretum, a bamboo grove, meadows, a pond, and woods, a unique place unmatched in the Bordeaux wine-making region. The origins of the estate stretch back to the 2nd century A.D., when the Roman family of Figeacus gave the estate its name. The estate quickly expanded and by the 19th century covered around 200 hectares. At one time, in fact, it included around 4 hectares of vineyards now owned by Château Cheval Blanc. It also explains the fact that there are several other wines bearing the Figeac name in Saint Émilion, which was once a part of the original estate.
The development of Libourne port in the 12th century, under English occupation, opened the way for shipping, meaning that the renown of wines from the Bordeaux region could spread throughout Europe. At that time Saint Émilion provided VIPs and European monarchs with the most prestigious of wines and even back then the wines from Saint Émilion were considered to be wines of exceptional quality, wines with a remarkable potential for ageing. Wealth from the export of wine gave rise to numerous château residences, and it is from that time onward that Saint Émilion became home to a great many enlightened amateurs and passionate experts, all contributing to the centuries-old renown of the vineyards.
The golden age of the great vintages of the 20th century began when Château Figeac came under the ownership of the Manoncourt family, which acquired the estate in 1892 and runs it to this day. Although it was bought in 1892 by André Villepigue, it was his grandson, Thierry Manoncourt (1917-2010), a man with a degree in agronomy, who left a fundamental mark after taking up the reins of the estate in 1947. He produced his first vintage in 1945, at the age of 28, and Château Figeac now works a total of 40 hectares of vineyards. These are remarkable for their gravel subsoil, unique in the Saint Émilion area, although there are also places with a mixed subsoil of clay and sand, playing a fundamental role in the mineral balance and water regime of the vines. If we were to compare the soil of the vineyards, it is similar in composition to places such as Château Haut-Brion in the Grave region or Château Lafite-Rothschild in Médoc.
Pharaoh Thierry Manoncourt
Thierry Manoncourt did not initially care for cultivating vines, instead wanting to understand the soils with all the science of a qualified agronomist. He slowly began re-planting the vineyards in 1949, taking some time to evaluate the varieties. From 1950 onwards he put aside two barrels from each variety of grape to be able to study their properties. This led to him curtailing the Malbec variety and developing Cabernet Sauvignon over 1/3 of the vineyards, Cabernet Franc over 1/3, and limiting Merlot to 1/3. This predominance of “cabernets”, absolutely unique in Saint-Émilion, remains one of the great originalities of Figeac to this day.
Thierry Manoncourt was also responsible for many of the revolutions that shaped the winery’s DNA: malo-lactique fermentation, natural fertiliser from ground vine shoots, maturation in new barrels, selection of grapes, the division of tracts, and thermoregulatory tests. He created natural drainage and changed the direction in which the plantation was set so as to perfectly expose the vines to the sun while the earth warmed in the spring. He also facilitated the rooting of the vine for simple nourishment in the cold underground strata of clay. Manoncourt was also a pioneer in creating the concept of a second wine. In 1945 he created La Grange Neuve de Figeac, now Petit Figeac.
We owe him for the enormous cellar that opens into the vineyard and the building of underground cellars so that the juice from the grapes could circulate by gravitation alone, without the use of pumps. He was one of the first to open his château to the public and one of the three founders of Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux. Together with his wife, Marie-France Manoncourt, he travelled the world, taking wine-makers from both banks (Médoc and St. Émilion) with him, paving the way for the export of wine for future generations. He most certainly deserved the nickname of the Pharaoh of Saint-Émilion that the region gave him!
After Thierry Manoncourt’s death in 2010, it was a major disappointment for the family that Figeac was not elevated to the absolute summit in the classification of Saint-Émilion wines: Premier Grands Crus Classé A. The classification has been modified every ten years following its establishment in 1955 (in contrast to the 1855 classification in Médoc) so as to stimulate and objectively re-evaluate all local wineries.
Marie-France Manoncourt, who at his side shared her husband’s enthusiasm and was inspired by his skills and values for more than fifty years, continues in the running of the estate together with her daughters and a top team of specialists. Over the past 10 years this team has been reaching for the summit in the field with its ever greater fund of knowledge, targeting the absolute peak of wine-making in Saint-Émilion.
“Only the desire for perfection and loyalty to our soil shape our decisions.”
Marie-France Manoncourt
By Ing. Arch. Iva Drebitko
Photo: archive of the author and of the Manoncourt family