Take THREE

Our Contributing Editor and expert on Bordeaux has followed developments at many estates over decades of visiting. Here he reveals the vision and financial input that have transformed the quality of the wines at a trio of them

- STEPHEN BROOK

I have been visiting Bordeaux for 40 years, observing its constant evolution, mostly for the better. Mediocre wines don't sell, and owners need profits. This has given them an incentive to invest, improve viticulture and adapt to fluctuating market conditions. The following are three very different properties that have changed radically over the decades, and thanks to a combination of money, passion and imagination, they have been transformed.

Château Smith Haut Lafitte

Pessac-Léognan CCG

For almost 90 years, this large Graves estate was owned by the Bordeaux négociant Eschenauer.

The wines weren't bad, but they were very dull. An abundant crop leading to a full cellar was the goal.

In the late 1980s, former Olympic skier and retail tycoon Daniel Cathiard was selling his business and keen to acquire a wine estate. In Burgundy, any properties for sale were small, but in Bordeaux, he learned, he could buy estates on a larger scale.

'I was attracted to Smith because it had 80 hectares in a single parcel,' he recalls. 'It was a classified growth, so I sensed a potential that Eschenauer hadn't yet realised.'

Daniel and his equally dynamic wife Florence, a fellow ski champion and a formidable advertising executive, threw themselves into the project with an ambition that astonished their neighbours. They added their own cooperage - a rarity in Bordeaux - and created a resort among the vines. A rusticstyle hotel was supported by two restaurants, one of which soon shone with a Michelin star or two.

It wasn't all plain sailing. The chef’s tangled love life affected consistency in the kitchen. And when I dined with the Cathiards during the soft launch of their top restaurant, dusk fell and the frogs that inhabited the adjoining lake turned up the volume.