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From Bordeaux to Windsor Great Park
Two great Collections, One Billion Bottles In the Making
Explore the Laithwaite Legacy Through Wine
Heritage Collection, 6 bottles – $207.94 $169.94
Generations Collection, 6 bottles – $295.94 $239.88
Meet the family behind a billion bottles of wine...
Tony Laithwaite set out for France in the 1960s looking for a summer job and a bit of adventure. He never expected a gig washing wine bottles for Monsieur Cassin in Bordeaux would lead to a more than 50-year legacy of wine world firsts…and an enduring family business built on a love of sharing great wine with friends.
Follow the Laithwaite story from Bordeaux to Windsor Great Park in a new film from the creators behind the award-winning SOMM movies and the streaming platform SOMM TV. The Laithwaites is a vertical tasting through the years and bottles that made Laithwaites Wine and continue to drive the family’s passion today.
We created the exclusive Heritage and Generations Collections to pair with the release of the film and celebrate the family’s history. Each represents a deliciously adventurous branch on the Laithwaite family tree of wine.
Explore the early days in Bordeaux with visits to Château Guibeau (one of Tony’s original suppliers, and lifelong friends) and Laithwaites’ own Château La Clarière in Castillon. Then, it’s on to the UK’s Windsor Great Park, Wyfold Vineyard and Harrow & Hope to pop a cork on English sparkling wine’s ascendence to the top of the global wine scene.
As a member of the Laithwaite’s extended family, you have exclusive access the Heritage and Generations Collections—plus more limited-edition cases inspired by the new film and one family’s beautiful life in wine.
a british man walks
into a bordeaux Château
It’s not the set-up of a joke. It’s the chance encounter that led to this incredible wine.
Before revolutionizing the British wine industry, Tony Laithwaite was just a college student with an affinity for the French countryside. That is, until he landed a job washing bottles at the local co-op with his soon-to-be mentor Monsieur Cassin.
London to Bordeaux & Back
In 1969, Tony began driving Mr. Cassin’s wine back to the UK in a van. He delivered the bottles in person, and people loved hearing the stories behind each one.
Growing with Guibeau
Tony’s passion project turned into a business when he partnered with Château Guibeau—a small, family-run estate in the Saint-Émilion satellite village of Puisseguin.
Becoming a Winemaker
In the 1980s, Tony’s former employer and mentor, Mr. Cassin, asked him to take over their estate. 40+ years later, Château La Clarière is the top estate in Castillon.
Putting Castillon on the map
The most sought-after vineyards of Saint-Émilion and Castillon are located on the limestone ridge surrounding the medieval village of Saint-Émilion. This area is perfectly suited for Merlot, the main grape variety featured in the region’s famous red wines.
As the most storied village in the area, the name “Saint-Émilion” became synonymous with lush, Merlot-based reds, and its estates were able to invest more in their vineyards and winemaking processes to make even greater reds. For winemakers in Castillon, it meant that, even if they could afford to pull out all the stops with the best, time-consuming (expensive) methods and barrels, the wine could never command the same prices as the wines from over the border.
So, for a long time, Castillon remained a region of untapped potential. Then Tony showed up. The vineyards of his La Clarière thrive a mere 10 meters from the legal border of Saint-Émilion.
The limestone soil under both Saint-Émilion and Castillon acts as a sponge. It absorbs excess water during wet periods, which prevents vines from getting waterlogged, and releases it gradually during dry spells so vines aren’t overly stressed by drought. This, in combination with the micro-climate, allows Merlot to ripen slowly over a long growing season, achieving a greater complexity of flavor and softer tannins.
With nearly identical terroir and care in approach to winemaking, the only thing separating many well-known Saint-Émilion wines from the equally delicious under-the-radar bottles from Château La Clarière in Castillon, is the mark-up created by an invisible line in the limestone soil.
The first family of English Sparkling Wine
“Have you ever seen a group of people watching Champagne being poured, and they didn’t have smiles on their faces?” This quote from Barbara Laithwaite pretty much says it all. With the right inspiration; chalky English soils; and a climate looking more like Champagne year after year, it’s no mystery that Barbara, Henry and the entire Laithwaite family have risen to the creamy, mousse-ytop of English sparkling wine.
Wyfold Vineyard was founded (and planted) by Barbara in 2003 as a single hectare of vines in Oxfordshire’s Chiltern Hills. This prime spot has sunny, south-facing slopes, a relatively high altitude (100 meters above sea level) and well-draining gravel soils. These conditions combine to yield grapes with beautiful ripeness, freshness and complexity. With vines tended by Barbara and wines crafted by Henry, the small estate has won huge acclaim since its inaugural release.
Windsor Great Park is English sparkling’s true crowning glory. It’s grown at the greatest château of them all (and the oldest inhabited castle in the world), Windsor. Vineyards were planted here in the 12th century for Henry II. Fast forward 850 years, and Tony Laithwaite has been permitted by The Crown Estate and Royal Farms to revive this ancient vineyard tradition to produce fine English fizz to rival the greats of Champagne.
Harrow & Hope is a boutique vineyard run by Henry Laithwaite and his wife Kaye who have chosen to work organically—with nature instead of against it. Each bottle of Harrow & Hope is a tribute to traditional methods of viticulture and winemaking, to the unique characteristics of Marlow, England and to the spirit of adventure.
