How one man is mixing Russian art with fine wine from Saint-Emilion

What do you get if you cross a Russian entrepreneur, chess trainer, and art collector with the finest vines of Saint-Émilion? A beautiful set of decorative bottles, a striking winery, and a delicious Merlot-dominant drop. In short, a top-end new wine project: Art Russe.

IT ALL began with Andrei Filatov, a lover of wine, French culture, and Russian art. Having amassed what is believed to be the largest private collection of 19th and 20th century Russian paintings and sculptures (the Art Russe foundation), he bought a winery.

This was in 2013, and the property was Saint-Émilion’s Château La Grace Dieu des Prieurs, selected because of Filatov’s great love of Right Bank Bordeaux.

He chose Louis Mitjavile, one of the world’s foremost Merlot specialists to be his winemaker. Under Mitjavile’s stewardship, yields at the Right Bank estate have been reduced and the pruning system altered from guyot to double cordon.

Weather stations have also been installed throughout the vineyards in order to ensure that the winery can “better react to changing climatic conditions”.

Filatov also set about building a new winery to complement the eight hectares of vines, which comprise 85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Franc, with an average age of 40 years. For this, he enlisted France’s most famous architect, Jean Nouvel.

The estate’s connection to art also comes in aural form. Classical music is played both in the fermentation and maturation cellar throughout the year, an element cellar master Alexy Jund, a former professional piano player, was keen to adopt at the estate.

The result was one wine from one estate, with the inaugural vintage being 2014.

The wines are made to the highest standards, employing labour-intensive viticulture to achieve maximum ripeness, and no-expense-spared winemaking, including the best ageing vessels – the Radoux Super Fine Blend barrels, using only the finest-grained oak staves.

RUSSIAN ART

Then there’s the packaging. The thick-set amphora-shaped bottles each feature a different piece of Russian art from Filatov’s foundation, hence their name: The Art Russe Collection. A dozen artworks are selected each year to adorn the labels of each vintage. There’s even a six-bottle package that doubles as a chess set, combining all three of Filatov’s passions: wine, art and the board game.

Depending on the vintage, a single bottle will start at £200.

The estate’s newest wine, Cuvée Elena, was released last year, and is the first and only Chardonnay made in Saint-Émilion. Produced from a 1ha plot planted in 2014, it is vinified in new oak Radoux barrels and aged for 12 months. A total of 1,300 magnums were made in the first year of its release, all of which were destined to be sold at auction, with proceeds from the sale going to charity.

The custom-made bottles were designed by French glassmaker Waltersperger, and feature the name of the wine embossed in relief above a hand-painted floral motif.

For a full assessment of the four harvests on the market so far from Art Russe, which comprise the 2014, 15, 16 and 18, see the drinks business’  YouTube channel.

As for the Cuvée Elena, it was awarded a Gold medal in the Global Chardonnay Masters 2021. db’s editor in chief, Patrick Schmitt MW, gave the wine 94 points, calling it “persistent, interesting, and delicious, even in this youthful state”.