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Discover Bordeaux’s
Best-Kept Secret
Château La Clarière 2023
6 bottles – $239.94 $161.94 ($26.99 per bottle)
12 bottles – $479.88 $299.88 ($24.99 per bottle)
How much difference can an invisible line make?
Tony Laithwaite was just a college student on a trip to Bordeaux. Sent to study rocks and artifacts, he discovered a secret hidden in plain sight: Castillon lies on the same limestone ridge as the most famous wine estates in Saint-Émilion (see below for why that’s so important).
The vineyards, the climate and the soil (or as the French like to say, the terroir) are pretty much identical. The only thing that separates Castillon from Saint-Émilion is a civic border, which has nothing to do with wine, dating back to the 12th century.
On either side of that invisible line, the wines command vastly different prices.
Tony took a leap of faith. He acquired an estate in Castillon and made his red wine just like a Saint-Émilion Grand Cru Classé, proving that a wine’s quality isn’t determined by the name of the producer or region on the label.
Led today by head-winemaker Jean-Marc Sauboua, Chateau La Clarière’s no-expense-spared approach has earned their wines over 190 awards, including the prestigious Prix d’Excellence at the Concours Général Agricole—not once, but twice. Now you have access to their finest wine…and the château itself.
Jean-Marc Sauboua has been our chief winemaker at Château La Clarière for over 30 years. As a Bordeaux native who trained at Château Haut-Brion, there’s no one better to make sure our wine is an authentic, age-worthy Bordeaux of the highest class.
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 Tony Laithwaite revolutionized the British wine industry, he was just a college student with an affinity for the French countryside. When the opportunity arose to go on an archeological dig in Bordeaux, Tony took it. That decision changed the course of his life, and Castillon, forever.
The year was 1969…
As a college student on a trip to Bordeaux, Tony washed bottles at the local co-op and learned that Castillon lies on the same limestone ridge as Saint-Émilion.
A man on a mission
In the 1980s, Tony’s former employers and wine mentors, Mr. and Mrs. Cassin, asked him to take over their estate and prove what Castillon was capable of.
The rest is history
40 years later, Château La Clarière is the top estate in Castillon—even after all the big names in Saint-Émilion followed Tony over the border!
What’s so important about This limestone ridge?
The 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.
The limestone soil 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 (moderated by the Atlantic ocean and the nearby Gironde estuary), allows Merlot to ripen slowly over a long growing season, achieving a greater complexity of flavor and softer tannins.
As the most famous village in the area, the Saint-Émilion name 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 wines. 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.
Therefore, for a long time, it remained a region of untapped potential. Then Tony showed up…
Leading the way in Castillon
Château La Clarière doesn’t take any shortcuts when it comes to making wine. The vineyards are tended with an eye for sustainability. A horse slowly plods the rows of the terraced vineyards, led by the talented and determined Susana Teixeira.
Susana visits four times a year with her horses, who do an amazing job plowing the inter-row weeds back into the soil to feed it with nutrients. Even though the horse is large and heavy, the tread is much lighter than a tractor’s, so soils are less compacted.
There are plenty of elite names who have signed up for equine plowing—in Bordeaux, Châteaux Ausone, Troplong-Mondot, Pontet-Canet and Latour, to name just a few.
Château La Clarière was the first estate in Castillon to use a grape sorting table, which ensures only the best grapes are used. These are then gently lifted (not pumped) into tanks to avoid “bruising” the wine.
In the cellar, the wine is aged in new French oak barrels—all made by the finest coopers, Seguin Moreau and Taransaud. The wine spends a year in these barriques. It’s the Grand Cru treatment that Castillon wines deserved.
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