Laithwaites chai breaks all the rules

After years of fitful renovation and investment, Laithwaite’s Bordeaux venture, Le Chai au Quai, is finally taking shape as a fully-fledged winery.

In less than a month it will open as a completely renovated, operating space that can make wine, receive customers and host tastings and receptions.

The winery has, in a short space of time, already established a clientele of around 10,000 people who, taking allocations of anywhere between one and four cases, routinely clear the 40,000 cases currently produced a year.

Justin Howard-Sneyd MW, Laithwaite’s global wine director, told the drinks business about the changing face of the winery and its potential.

“The emphasis on the wines we are making there is changing since I’ve arrived," he said.

"Some wines that we’ve made we won’t be making anymore and some wines we haven’t yet made I’ve talked with Jean-Marc (Sauboua, the winemaker) about creating.”

The restructuring of the range will likely see the scaling down of the St Estèphe production to focus on two wines from the Médoc, Pauillac and Margaux, and two right bank wines, St Émilion and Pomerol.

However, while the focus on classic Bordeaux wines is important to the winery, Howard-Sneyd stressed the willingness of the winemaking team to experiment and bend the rules to get the results they wanted for the wines produced from its other French regions such as Bergerac.

He said that because of the recently refitted winery and winemaking team based there: “We have the flexibility to do things within the rules of Bordeaux, or completely break the rules and go and buy wine or grapes or juice or whatever from anywhere else and bring it to the chai to finish off.

“And if we have to call it a Vin de Table as a result or a Vin de France because we’ve broken some of the rules and brought in a grape variety that isn’t traditional, or taken an appellation wine out of its appellation area to be made, then we do that and we have a group of customers who are signed up to take wine from the chai who are prepared for that slightly unusual approach.

“So it’s quite an exciting thing to do and to work with winemakers who are very good at working within the rules when they want to but also are quite happy to do something wacky and different if they want to.”

Rupert Millar, 10.06.2010