Lagrezette Blog

Pigeonnier 2005 gets “Coup de Cœur” in the Hachette Guide 2009

Despite winning a number of awards this year, achieving the “Coup de Cœur” in one of the best known guides, the Hachette Guide to French Wines, is without doubt one of the highlights of 2008 for us. Other prizes this year include the Gold Medal at the Paris Agricultural Exhibition for our Grézette white.

This time, it is the most prestigious of our vintages, “Le Pigeonnier”, which has been tipped by tasters for its 2005 vintage:

“A top-of-the-range production from a 16th century chateau, classified as a historical monument and renowned for its wonderful dovecote. Having been rated ‘Coup de Cœur’ in the 2004 edition, this year the wine once again receives the unanimous recognition of the grand jury for its 100% Malbec Cahors. Deep berry in colour - its nose is surprisingly fruity, despite its two year maturing process. On the palate, you can feel a rare presence, elegance and smoothness, it is a very supple and assertive wine. Another great success for Alain Dominique Perrin to accompany his 2005 Dame Honneur vintage from Château Lagrézette (€30 to €38), which gained two stars for its balance and silky structure.”

These bottles are in our cellars and will be available… in a year.

Lagrezette supports the Saint-Céré Festival

As we already said, each summer, the Saint-Céré Voice Music Festival is announced among the highlights of the cultural and tourist season, between the Lot and the valley of the Dordogne. Let’s listen to its creator, Olivier Desbordes. The Saint-Céré Festival is a universe apart in the world of opera. Born of the choir music gatherings created in the 1960’s by Pierre Host, the Saint-Céré Festival was founded in 1980, (…) in order to bring cultural creation and events to a rural area. Our first dream was to stage operas in the courtyard of the Château de Castelnau-Bretenoux. In choosing historic and theatrical places, the purpose was not to breathe life into ancient stones, but rather to dare to confront a content with a new audience and to move opera out of its usual sanctuaries. A few years were enough to give birth to a new dream: to create a place where young artists could work. A place in which to experiment, to take risks that the great French opera houses could not and cannot take. Since then, generations of singers, musicians, conductors and directors, have “grown up” at Saint Céré... from the most modest to the most famous! It will not therefore come as a surprise to learn that the Domaine de Lagrézette, where art is present everywhere, supports the Saint Céré Festival (insert internet link here) through a grant in bottled form, thus providing a worthy accompaniment to the festival-goers’ dinners on the ramparts, in our region known for its superior gastronomy. This superb Festival will end August 16. You still have opportunities to go there...

The Cello Encounters in Belaye

Belaye is a small village perched on a height 30 kilometers from Cahors, looking out over the vineyards and over a bend in the Lot.

It now numbers no more than 200 people. And yet, every year for the past twenty years, it becomes a meeting place for the music lovers in the area. For twenty years now, Belaye has opened its doors to chamber music and first lends homage to cellists.

This year, from July 31 to August 8, there will be over twenty of them . They will perform works by the greatest composers, among them Beethoven, Haydn, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Honegger, Brahms, Janacek… We at Lagrézette are proud to take part in such a fine event by supplying wine to the diners taking part in the feasting surrounding the concerts. And of course we encourage all strollers to discover both a superb place and an event of international quality.

It’s a spot where you can experience one of those magic moments in which all the senses find themselves challenged.

http://violoncelle-belaye.site.voila.fr/

Roland Pidoux (picture) is the Artistic Manager of the Festival.

He teaches cello at The National Conservatoire de Paris.

The Saint Ceré Festival starts one week from now

The Domaine de Lagrézette is a partner of the Saint Ceré Opera  Festival, a highlight of summertime cultural life in the lands of the Lot. It will start in a week, that is, on July 29, with a Tango evening, followed by an « oriental nouba ».

Then the Opera will assert its rights.

This year the Tales of Hoffman will be the highlight of the Festival. On the festival website, you will of course be able to discover the full program of the performances, which will last until August 16. As one evening follows another, we will hear concertos by Mozart, Bach and Handel, an adaptation of the Barber of Seville, and various creations in the spirit of experimentation and creation which has guided the Festival for nearly thirty years. Between Saint-Ceré and Caillac, where Château Lagrézette is located, there is less than an hour by car…. You may gather from that how welcome you will be this summer, both here and there.
please find below the html code giving access to the interactive map between Caillac and Saint Ceré

Agrandir le plan

The art of wine is an art apart

By Alain Dominique Perrin

I’m often asked, even today, whether my passion for wine and viticulture is influenced by my taste for Art. I do not honestly think so.

I love art, that is obvious: I always need art all around me. When I find myself surrounded by walls without art, I’m bored to death and ill at ease. Working inside the house of Cartier taught me extreme refinement, excellence, the search for perfection. So, when I’m making wine, I want to make a fine wine, not a supermarket wine. But the approach is different. Wine is not, and must never become, an exclusive, luxury item. When I talk about our wine, I am first talking about the passion that we put into making it. There is love in working and cultivating the vines, in finding the best assemblages and in waiting to share the fruit of our labor. But if I had to find a link with art and if I had to compare my wine to a work of art, I would choose one of César’s compression works, for its strength, force and density.

Our wines are masculine. They have body and a strong personality, just like the works of Cesar. He was like a brother, my best friend, and wine is inseparable from friendship.

Speaking of Cesar, this note gives me the chance to announce that an exhibition revolving around his work will be held in the near future at the Fondation Cartier… Dear friends and readers of this blog, don’t miss this retrospective, which I await impatiently. All the more so as it is being staged by the great architect, Jean Nouvel.

 

Boy with grapes

The artistic and historical qualities of Chateau Lagrézette earned it a classification as historical monument in 1982.

Some years later, we decided to devote a book of photos and commentary "to this extraordinary place, honoring wine, taste, and the rustic environment."

Quite naturally, for the cover we invited this "boy with grapes.”… Summer and winter alike, just a step away from the château, "he" keeps watch over the serenity of our gardens. Like all of us at the Estate, “he” looks out across the distance. “he” is part of this very place; of this tradition which we strive to extend by producing wines, both good and great, for tomorrow.

He is modern, and yet comes from long ago ... like this superb Malbec grape, which was already growing on our lands of Cahors over 500 years ago ... and which has been coming back to life over the last thirty years.

                                       

He is in a way our good luck charm. Our mascot. This “Boy with grapes” is for all of us who live and work here, a symbol of elegance. It was perfectly natural for one of the very first notes of this brand-new blog to be devoted to him.