Château Peybonhomme-les-Tours

Blaye, Bordeaux, France

"The Hubert Family, which owns Peybonhomme-les-Tours and several other labels, has perfected the formula of farming biodynamically and making wines that always seem better than their prices indicate." — Eric Asimov, New York Times

When I met with Rachel Hubert at Château Peybonhomme-les-Tours this summer, I was stunned by the magic of the place. The 17^th century Château itself has a swooning, early Wes Anderson quality, inside and out—a charm I found transmuted in the wines themselves. Before all else, Rachel leads me to the top of the eponymous tour itself where a clear view past the ancient defensive citadel to the Gironde estuary and across to Saint-Julien and Pauillac can be had before rotating in an uninterrupted 360º survey of the rolling, emerald saturated vignoble of the Blaye. Vying with Bourg and Graves for earliest vineyard sites in Bordeaux, the Blaye today is home to many of the most avant-garde producers in Bordeaux with Château Peybonhomme-les-Tours at the head table.

Descending to their pristinely clean yet antique chais, the cellar feels like a snapshot of the story of French wine today: the old is new again. The room feels thick with happy mysteries. You immediately notice there are as many terracotta vessels as there are French oak, and in so many sizes and shapes. Nevertheless, it is the vineyard where most of our time was spent and where the most magic is felt. A vineyard that’s been farmed this way for this long has that unique quality you find in forests where the environs themselves seem to be exhaling and exchanging air and information with your own respirations. Mint and beans and sweet peas and flowers galore intertwine with vines or make warp and weft with the glossy mane of wild grasses stitched tight between the rows. It was remarkable!

In Biodynamics for over a quarter of a century, Peybonhomme-les-Tours is the earliest adopter in Bordeaux’s right bank of this fantastical yet efficacious mode of farming—no small task in such mercurial and and humid region! It is an honour to the quality of this terroir (Cocks & Féret 1868 classification anointed Peybonhomme as a Premier Cru).

But what of the wines themselves? Rachel and Guillaume Hubert’s wines are at once a glimpse into the future of Bordeaux and an artifact of pre-Parker styles. So vivid, refreshing, and electric are their myriad wines; their classical cuvées with the body and structure and balance of a bygone age and offering benchmark expressions of the Blaye’s terroir while their many inventive Vins de France offer avant-garde and rambunctious remixes of what Bordeaux could be. The former set are buttoned up with clean precision (while still impressively minimalist) while the latter set make room for the wild side to come out and play. Both lanes offer tremendous complexity, especially given this decade’s surprising price to value ratio as Bordeaux has fallen from the spotlight.

The Huberts ferment with indigenous yeast, minute sulfur additions, and a plethora of fermentation and aging vessels. These range from the classic Bordeaux barriques (new and old) to varying sizes of cooperage, amphorae, and cement. Their wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered.

In true, old school Bordeaux fashion, these wines are glorious food pairing wines — versatile and sure to elevate a host of dishes. The limestone-marked structure, acidity, and freshness of their wines make every one of their cuvées… how would the kids say it?… truly bistro-coded. It’s fitting then that when we found ourselves out for the Bordelais standard Bavette steak frites after our tour and tasting, the restaurant we visited happened to be pouring Peybonhomme-les-Tours magnums by the glass that very evening. Quelle bonne chance!

Today both of Rachel & Guillaume’s wineries — Château Peybonhomme-les-Tours in the Blaye and Château la Grolet in the Bourg — are well-known and highly regarded across France by the like-minded vignerons, restaurants, and wine bars invested in the nuanced flavours of terrific farming and patrimoine.

*Fun facts and references:

Among the oldest winemaking estates in all of Blaye.
Like it’s sibling Château, La Grolet in neighbouring Bourg, Peybonhomme-les-Tours is among the first biodynamic estates in Bordeaux, certified since the year 2000.
Château Peybonhomme-Les-Tours was classified as a ‘Premier Cru Bourgeois’ in 1868 (Cocks & Féret second edition), certifying its terroir among the best suited to producing fine wine on the right bank.
Hillside plots covering 64 hectares, the Château dates to the 17^th century and overlooks the Gironde river and provides a 360º survey of the rolling, verdant vignoble of Blaye.
Brother and sister Guillaume and Rachel Hubert are the fifth contiguous generation to farm wine here since their mother Catherine’s great-grandfather purchased this premier cru estate in 1890. Guillaume, a nature lover with a passion for flora and fauna, joined the family business in 2007 after completing environmental and ecological studies. Having qualified as a pharmacist, his sister Rachel chose to join her brother in 2012 and together take up a new challenge, to produce a variety of unique high-quality natural wine cuvées that have earned the Estate its renewed global attention.
As benchmark darlings of the Blaye Côtes-de-Bordeaux AOC, there’s some really great footage of Peybonhomme-les-Tours produced by the appellation consortium, provided you can stomach the unbearable score and soft-fades of this video ha ha ha, it is a genuinely breathtaking terroir: video on youtube here.