Smith Haut-Lafitte:
A Castle Between Authenticity and Modernity

A GRAVES GRAND CRU CLASSÉ BETWEEN AUTHENTICITY AND MODERNITY

The estate owes its name to one of its former owners, George Smith, who in the 18th century was involved in exporting the already renowned wine to his home country.

So when Daniel Cathiard and his wife bought the estate in 1990, they saw themselves as owners of a real jewel, whose name has been emblematic of Bordeaux wines for several centuries. Driven by the desire to make one of the best wines in the world, and aware of the richness of their terroir, the owners did not hesitate to return to ancestral methods by promoting manual harvesting, making their own compost, ploughing with a horse, completely eliminating herbicides, setting up a cooperage, etc.

But the Cathiard family is also turning to new technologies and is one of the few winegrowing families to use the "œnoview" process, a satellite designed to observe and monitor the ripening of the grapes and optimise the harvest. Using image processing technology, the satellite analyses the vineyard with a resolution of 2 m² per pixel. The stage of development of the vine's plant cover is analysed in all sectors of the same plot to define the enological ripeness of the grapes down to the last row of vines.

These homogeneous zones mapped by infrared make it possible to identify the vines to be harvested, because even by tasting them, we realise that the stage of ripening of the grapes is never the same from one vine to another. This new satellite technology therefore allows for optimum quality to be achieved. Precise and precious information to better estimate the potential of the plots in terms of their yield.

Other gems of innovation: the Winer technology which vibrates the bunches to free the grapes without fragmenting the stalks; or the Vistalys precision optical sorting system which, since 2008, has been sorting the grapes after photographing them according to precise parameters. A meticulousness worthy of the greatest wines!

NATURE, A REQUIREMENT THAT HAS BECOME A LEITMOTIF

For 25 years, Florence and Daniel Cathiard have placed environmental concerns at the heart of their work.

This approach, called "Bio-Precision", was welcomed at the COP21. The aim is to combine innovative viticulture and vinification techniques with the utmost respect for the living world.

To guarantee the balance of the ecosystem of the vineyard, the respect of the soil and the vines, the estate uses biodynamic farming methods: an organic fight which bans all chemical inputs, the production of organic compost is made from the prunings of the vines, the grape marc and the manure of cows and horses. Biodiversity is encouraged by the planting of hedges, natural grassing of the soil and the installation of beehives to allow for the diversity of fauna. These practices are combined with ancestral methods: manual harvesting, shodding, dehairing and even ploughing with horses.

Promoting biodiversity also means maintaining the genetic diversity of the vines and therefore the complexity of the wines. The estate has its own nursery on the island of La Lande, an enclosed and protected ecosystem surrounded by the Garonne. This is where the mother vines of the rootstocks are selected.