Château Smith Haut Lafitte

The Free Bacchus Story

In 1993 the estate hired a cooper and stopped buying barrels. Almost every barrel for the red is now made on site, from oak the property selects and seasons itself. Coopering is a trade most châteaux are content to buy in, because buying is easier and very nearly as good.

Daniel and Florence Cathiard bought Smith Haut Lafitte in 1990, when it was run down and neglected. They also built Les Sources de Caudalie on the estate, a hotel and spa using grape-skin extract, which turned a Pessac-Léognan Grand Cru Classé into a destination as well as a producer — and gave it a second business to carry the vineyard through the years the vineyard could not carry itself.

Organic certification came in 2019, after converting all eighty hectares at once. The vineyard is a single unbroken block, so the conversion put the disease risk across the entire property in the same season, with no unconverted rows to fall back on.

Horses have worked the white-wine plots since 1998, spraying decoctions of yarrow, horsetail and tansy grown on the property. Biodynamic methods have been used for around a decade without the estate seeking biodynamic certification.

In 2014 it began capturing the carbon dioxide fermentation gives off and converting it into sodium bicarbonate, describing the installation as the first of its kind anywhere. We record the first-ever part as the estate’s claim. The system itself is not in doubt.