Figeac plans major winery renovations

Château Figeac in St-Emilion has announced plans for a major expansion and reworking of its winery, cellar and vat rooms in order to keep pace with the changes taking place with the handling of the vineyard and winemaking at the estate.

The two year project will see the surface area of the chai grow from its current 1,600m² to 5,000m² with the increased capacity necessary to do intra-plot vinifications from a vineyard surface area that has grown from 32 hectares to 40.5ha since 2015.

The new winery will extend over two levels underground, with a vat room made up of eight oak vats and 40 stainless steel tanks (from 125hl to 10hl in size) – up from 10 wooden vats and 16 steel tanks today – as well as a vat room for research and development; two large underground barrel rooms; a packaging area; bottle cellar and cold room with the space to hold 20 tons of berries at harvest time.

The cellar will also be laid out in such a way that the, from arrival, the grapes will gradually make their way underground, through the sorting room, vat room and then first barrel cellar.

While the construction of the new cellars is on-going, Figeac has constructed a provisional 1,600m² cellar which will be destroyed when the new facilities are completed.