October 2020 - Château Palmer will host Genius Loci, an emblematic exhibition in tribute to the French plastic artist-photographer, François Méchain... In each of the places he worked in over forty-five years - his most intimate territories, his region, numerous foreign countries - this Charente native found the material necessary to imagine complex and unique pieces that he immortalized through his lens. Imbued with strong and committed messages, his sensitive way of approaching our world and the brilliance of its elements echoes the values of Château Palmer.

Sculptor-photographer, but also "journalist, geographer, biologist, historian, amateur sociologist" in his own words, François Méchain was from the start of his career a plastic artist in love with nature and travel, keen to get his viewers to reflect on what they are given to observe. Between 1978 and 1982, he produced Equivalences, a series of poetic and intimate photographs that questioned the powers of image, between illusion and reality. From 1988 to 1989, the nomadic artist modeled the nature surrounding him through enigmatic vegetal sculptures with geometric purity, theatricalized in natural landscapes.

Photographed, these Sculptures-Fictions still confuse reality and its representation. Whilst continuously traveling across vast and distant lands, he created large In-Situ installations, whose photographic prints constitute the ultimate culmination of a process highlighting both environmental concerns and philosophical or political reflections, depending on the context.

Over his forty-five years of creativity, François Méchain never ceased to widen the circle of his interests and his field of action. Firstly, the intimate sphere with Equivalences as its focus, then the spatial circle of Sculptures-Fictions with the landscapes working alongside the studio. Finally, the outer part of the circle through his homes and his overseas orders (Finland, Italy, Canada, Brazil, USA ...), in the context of In-Situ. 

The exhibition  « Genius Loci » by François Méchain may be seen during estate visits to Château Palmer, from 20th October 2020 to 15th January 2021. Length: 2 ½ hours - 70€ - Reservations by e-mail: chateau-palmer@chateau-palmer.com

*For everyone's safety, wearing a mask is compulsory within the property and the barrier gestures are applied. Depending on the evolution of the health crisis, the program may need to change.

Durban, Chaumont-sur-Loire, 2012 © François Méchain

September 2020 - The future of Château Palmer has been penned out for generations. But the past decade, like the one that is just starting, proves that the lines sometimes move more easily than you might think ...

10 years of pioneering practices

In 2010, Château Palmer embarked on the path of holistic agriculture. The vineyard reinvented itself as a vast ecosystem whose essence, whose true nature, was to be autonomous and well balanced. The vines’ defenses were stimulated, the living energies were channeled. Since then, the grass has grown, flowers and plants with healing properties have blossomed. Biodiversity appeared, agrochemicals disappeared. The wine gained in precision, nobility and brilliance. Palmer was fully converted to biodynamics by 2014.

10 years of kept promises

In 2010, in continuation of the vintages that made it such a legend (1961, 1983, 2005 ...), Palmer opened the decade with a heavenly wine, characterised by its complexity, depth, and bewitching effect on the palate. A wine full of promises, chiseled for ageing, and whose velvet touch resonated over time. More vintages followed on that alternated the unexpected and the sublime, the unclassifiable and the historic, freshness and harmony, in turn validating the new agricultural route: putting a place into a glass.

10 years of revelations to come

In 2010, Château Palmer chose to keep a large part of its bottled production in the property’s historic cellar. While the Primeurs Week, which traditionally takes place in Bordeaux in April, remains the opportunity to present great wines in their prime, in 2020, Palmer inaugurates a new key moment: the second and last sale of a wine that has reached the age of reason, after ten years of meticulous ageing at the Château, now ready to reveal the spectrum of its aromatic nuances.

On Thursday 24th September 2020, it is therefore with an already legendary wine, part of a great vintage for Bordeaux, that this rendez-vous will be inaugurated: Château Palmer 2010.

Photography  ©Yann Rabanier

Find out more :

https://bit.ly/Palmer2010TYO-EN