NEWS

If it were a château, would it be in the sky? Quiet, haughty, disconnected from days and nights? No. Just like at Palmer, it would be firmly rooted among the vines. 
 

Who still dreams of châteaux? The Grand Siècle fantasy has worn thin. The new world seeks out the horizontal, refusing all arrogant ancestors. While this may be true, we are too quick to forget that its towers are also perfect lightning rods. Freed from its cold disdain, the château now appears as an anchor, an efficient catalyst capturing energy from the landscape to emanate across the surrounding areas.

To truly understand this concept at Palmer requires beginning a journey at the port, allowing the ocean breeze to blow you from the estuary to the foliage of the vine stock. From there, the silhouette will loom tall, nestled against the hill, the bridge that binds the estate together. 

The château recounts the history of Palmer much like the needle deciphers music from the grooves of a vinyl record. A walled complex that amplifies atmospheres and eras, set to an endlessly singular and overpowering melody. While the estate has existed since the early 18th century, the château only came to life in 1854. This was a year after two brothers Isaac and Emile Pereire, iconic businessmen of the Second Empire, acquired the 163-acre ensemble created by the adventurous Charles Palmer. They decided to endow it with an edifice befitting its reputation – a reputation confirmed by the classification of 1855. 

The château was built by Bordeaux architect Charles Burguet in a neo-Gothic style in keeping with the times. It featured a main building spanning three floors, flanked by four turrets with round front-facing façades and angular rear sections. These aspects are hardly out of the ordinary, but those looking closely at the detailed ornaments will see that the subtle Baroque appearance – which adopts a mysterious aura after nightfall – is akin to the fabulous quintas in the Portuguese town of Sintra so adored by Lord Byron. This reference is not down to chance, but in fact highlights both the Lusitanian origins of the Pereire brothers and the estate’s cosmopolitan personality. 

Alongside this worldly openness, the Pereire brothers also extended the château outwards in the tradition of the Bordeaux estates, building a self-sufficient village home to the workers who oversaw the smooth-running of the property. 
These are two sides of the same coin. 

At Palmer, the château is worn like a talisman. Its place on the label is not just symbolic. It deepens with every passing day, shaping the organization of the village and lending a full sense to the consumable landscape – both its meaning and its direction.

by Paul-Henri Bizon

Château Palmer is an intricate patchwork of skillsets, grape varieties and personalities. The estate was divided into five "islands" four years ago and the teams rediscover their distinct plots each season, mastering them with time, experience and ever-deeper roots. Each section has its own dedicated squad, its "specialist" winegrower, its mood swings and sense of humour, its pruning style and its harvest. These rich, varied profiles have all had a dramatic year; twelve rainy months with little sunshine and the threat of frost and mildew. A "summerless" year, as the growers like to say, having come to terms with the whims of the climate. "We were wearing T-shirts in February and woolly hats in April." But the unpredictable weather has done nothing to dampen their enthusiasm, nor sap their work ethic, which is founded on precision, attentiveness and a love of the earth.

Boston-Boulibrane

In a mixture of jest and pride, Jonathan has named it the "Arctic Circle." This island is the furthest and wildest on the Château Palmer estate; an enclave fit only for strong hands and hardy souls capable of braving the cold to nurture a young, undisciplined Cabernet-Sauvignon vine planted just twenty years ago. Back in 2017, the frost decimated the harvest. Since then, the plot's crack team led by Stéphanie has refined its strategy to rescue any endangered sections. Their methods now include emergency wind turbines against late frosts, an arsenal of candles lit for the first time this year, and regularly spraying the vine with herbal tea. Accompanied by Teddy, an archaeology graduate with a passion for biodynamic agriculture, this brigade of adventurous winegrowers and vineyard first-aiders enjoy the reward of working in a unique, wooded setting near the sheep pen. A challenging land, but therefore one of infinite promise.

The 40s-50s

A railway track meanders through this island and its twenty plots, home to a majority of Merlot and a small section of Cabernet and Petit Verdot. This third variety is gentler and easier to prune than the others, but also more sensitive to humidity in a context where there can be "all four seasons in one day," as Marie often says. She and her colleague Kyllian welcomed a new member this winter. At the age of forty, Bruno has discovered teamwork, the Palmer spirit — "getting the most out of every detail!" — and is astounded by the daily celebration of biodiversity. "Nature recharges its batteries here; you can feel it. The grass is thick, teeming with insects, and the occasional snake. I prefer seeing animals than tractors. It's essential for our children's future."

      During this period, the estate's staff jumps from 70 to 230 workers, bunches of men and women who make up the crucial patchwork of the harvest, joining forces to bring as many grapes as possible to the vat room. This is where all roads lead, where everything plays out under the high ceilings of the building next to the cellar. The beating heart of the hive, where the excellence of a vintage is concocted with second-by-second meticulous attention. A dozen experienced winemakers receive the pallets. They first sort the grapes by hand before turning to the indispensable arsenal of machinery, including destemmers, vibrating tables and optical sorters, which use high-speed cameras to detect and eject any unripe or bruised grapes. Only the highest-quality fruit is transported into the small, mobile vats — at a speed of 499 feet per minute — then into the main vat where four weeks of fermentation await.

Hands whirl and brains buzz around the machines. The bunches, individual berries and waste products are weighed, estimations are corrected, data is reassessed. "This is the control tower," says a smiling Fabien, who monitors the traceability of each delivery on his computer screen. The harvest is known for its physical demands, but also implies endless calculations, from the flurry of pallets and the number of hectolitres per hectare to the density of each vat and the pin-point temperatures. Every single step is perpetually adapted and adjusted.

This crucial, infinitesimal task continues on the floor above with the technical tasting process. Eleven bottles containing a sample from each vat are lined up on a table, ready to be swilled, inhaled and carefully compared. Thomas and Sabrina check that each fermentation is coming to fruition. Even at this stage they comment on the future vintage, plot by plot, assisted by cellar master Olivier and Hervé, a trained chemist, who prepares the "starter" with natural yeasts studied under the microscope in the laboratory. 

In the cellars, trainees accompanied by the teams "pump over" the must onto the top of the vat, before letting it flow back down through the grapes and the pomace, absorbing, darkening, and developing its structure. This operation is repeated three times a day. "This is when the skeleton of the wine is formed," says Hervé. "The foundations and key flavours of the vintage take shape." During the fermentation, "we taste each of the vats every day — 56 in total," says Olivier. A cutting-edge science that draws on the nose and the palate, requiring memory and intuition. A decisive instant in which four people sketch the soul of the wine by imagining potential combinations and anticipating future blends.

Another more light-hearted and restorative tasting session then begins. As a reward for twelve months of hard work, a shared lunch is held under a marquee a stone's throw from the cellar. A traditional truce, a leisurely break attended by winemakers, cellar workers, and all those who form the lifeblood of the estate. Even the chickens are there, waiting for a kindly hand to throw them the last pieces of bread left on the checked table cloth.