Château Latour turns vineyard pebbles into luxury watch

The Bordeaux winery has teamed up with legendary Swiss watchmaker Girard-Perregaux to create a watch incorporating pebbles from Latour’s vineyard.

Fine wine producers are increasingly teaming up with luxury fashion brands to create products that span both fields of expertise.

Earlier this month db reported that Champagne maison Veuve Clicquot has partnered with fashion designer Stella McCartney who will make handbags and shoes from cork waste donated by the sparkling wine producer. Both brands are owned by luxury powerhouse LVMH.

Now Château Latour has shaken hands on another luxury hook-up, working with watchmaker Girard-Perregaux to craft the highly exclusive 1966 Château Latour Edition timepiece.

One of the oldest watchmaking businesses still operating in Switzerland, Girard-Perregaux has made just 18 of the limited edition watches, which will be exclusively available to private guests of Château Latour, and visitors to the Villa Girard-Perregaux in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland’s Jura mountains.

The watch face is crafted using pebbles sourced from Château Latour’s vineyard in Pauillac, where deep gravel-based soil is enriched with clay found in the subsoils.

According to Girard-Perregaux each watch face took 30 hours to complete. Artisans had to thin the stones down to a 0.45mm sliver and mount them on a brass base before the rest of the watch could be created.

To complement the yellow tones of the vineyard pebbles the watch face sports a rose gold hue, and the Château Latour logo is engraved on the sapphire-encrusted watch back.

Château Latour has not yet revealed whether the watches are intended to be gifted to its private guests, or whether they will be available for them to buy.

Both watches and wine are increasingly popular investments on the secondary market.

The most expensive watch ever sold at auction is Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime Ref. 6300A-010, which sold in 2019 via Christie’s for US$31.19 million.

Meanwhile, a bottle of Château Latour 1961 sold for more than US$27,000 at auction in 2009. And in 2011 the château broke a world record when a 6-litre bottle of Latour was bought by a Chinese bidder for £135,000, making it the most expensive ever sold.

Despite these high sums, according to global marketplace Liv-ex Château Latour has historically been the least-traded First Growth on the secondary market, which suggests that buyers have been keen to hold onto bottles once they have secured them.

However, sales are starting to pick up, and in 2022 Château Latour accounted for 15.4% of First Growth trade by volume, up from 7.8% in 2021.

March 2023 saw the UK release of the 2015 vintage of Château Latour Premier Cru Classé, Pauillac, the youngest vintage released by the producer which operates outside the en primeur system. The 2015 was priced at £6,300 per case of 12 bottles.