Château Durfort-Vivens

The Free Bacchus Story

There are sixty-one red wines in Bordeaux's 1855 classification, and all but one come from the Médoc. Only a handful of them hold a biodynamic certificate, and Durfort-Vivens was among the first to earn one.

Gonzague Lurton started small. In 2009 he farmed about a fifth of the vineyard biodynamically, and by the 2013 harvest the whole estate was farmed that way. The certificates came with the 2016 vintage, organic from Ecocert and biodynamic from Demeter, and both are still in force today.

Durfort-Vivens is a Margaux Second Growth, which under the 1855 list places it in the tier immediately below the firsts. The vineyard is nine parts Cabernet Sauvignon, and the critics who taste the wine keep finding violets, lavender and iris alongside blackberry and blackcurrant.

Gonzague Lurton has said his father farmed at a time when everyone farmed conventionally, and thought he had lost his mind when he proposed going organic and biodynamic. He owns the property outright, which is the reason he could ignore the advice.

Farming this way in Bordeaux's damp climate carries real risk. In 2018 mildew took four fifths of the crop. Yields fell to about 10 hectolitres a hectare, against a normal 45, and only 6,000 bottles of the grand vin were made. Lurton fermented the little that survived entirely in clay amphorae.