Wild labels from wild women

Bordeaux’s women winemakers are taking their passion for the environment from the land to the label, reports Wendy Narby.

A recent conversations with Estelle Roumage at Château Lestrille, her family vineyard in the Entre deux Mers, demonstrated how difficult it can be as a Bordeaux producer to get your wines in front of independent retailers. Cold call and the answer is invariably ‘I have enough Bordeaux’ or, ‘I don’t have a demand for Bordeaux’. However, when she turns up unannounced and shows her wines, they are not only tasted but often listed. Why the mismatch?

The reason is that her wines do not fit the image the trade has of a classic Bordeaux. They’re wild! These attractive labels push past any anti-Bordeaux bias from the trade, from gate keepers stuck with an image of Bordeaux that no longer reflects what’s happening in the vineyards and cellars.

A few days later, at a lunch with producers of classic and classified wines, I served her Château Lestrille and a few other ‘wild labels’. Everyone reached for the bottles, intrigued and impressed by labels they didn’t know, and importantly the wines didn’t disappoint. No style over substance here.

Message on a bottle

These labels are more than marketing, they illustrate a commitment to protecting and preserving the environment of the vineyards where the wines are made. 75% of Bordeaux is now under sustainable certification and more embrace these methods. The other thing all the wines below have in common is, they are made, or marketed by women.

Château Lestrille where the conversation started, is in the heart of the Entre deux Mers. As one of the most biodiverse regions of Bordeaux, with 94% under environmental certification, it’s a good a place to talk about sustainability and biodiversity. Estelle has been farming sustainably at Chateau Lestrille since the 1980s, certified ISO 14001 and HVE (Haute Valeur Environemental) their first certified organic vintage was 2023. Initiatives to protect and encourage biodiversity include planting hedges, an orchard, creating a pond, sowing wild flower seeds on fallow land to attract pollinators (Lestrille is certified bee friendly) and banning the use of any herbicides.

The labels from her ‘classic range’ of Clairet, Bordeaux Rosé, Red Bordeaux Supérieur and white Entre deux Mers perfectly illustrate the philosophy, the design features insects, birds, plants and grapes on the colourful labels. Her ‘Petit Lestrille’ Bordeaux white, red and rosé available in both bottle and BIB are also signed with a local song bird. She used the same messaging for the label of her 120th anniversary 2018, limited edition cuvée made from Merlot vines, planted by her grandfather in 1948.

Look and taste

These wine labels don’t look like the trade’s expectations of Bordeaux and sometimes don’t taste like it. Château Thieuley also produces a wide range of wines, a theme in the Entre deux Mers. In the Courselle  family since 1950, the vineyard now covers three properties : Château Thieuley, Clos Saint Anne and Château Saint Genès and is run by sisters Marie and Sylvie Courselle. Since 2017, all their wines are certified Terra Vitis, HVE since 2019 and Bee Friendly since 2020. They installed their own hives in 2021. A really cool map of the property on their website ( focuses on the amazing biodiversity they have found and encourage across the property. This same biodiversity is reflected on the labels of their latest wine.

The sisters have created many new labels, going outside the typical Bordeaux remit, their approach to biodiversity includes grape varieties. They currently have 13 different grape varieties planted across their vineyards. In 2007, they were some of the first to plant Chardonnay and Syrah in the Entre Deux Mers, launching their Vin de France Truffières white and red in 2011. 2022, saw their latest Vin de France adventure, ‘Sauvage’ (wild in French) made from hybrid varieties. Cabernet Cortis (a Cabernet Sauvignon x Solaris hybrid created in 1982) for the red and Sauvignac (a Sauvignon x Riesling x Vitis hybrid created in 1991) for the white. These hybrids are more resistant to Mildew and Oidium, allowing a more hands-off approach to work in the vineyards, less intervention and soil compaction, with flourishing cover crops, all great for soil health. The labels created by graphic artist; Lorraine de Froberville, reflect the wonderful biodiversity of wild flowers in the vineyard.

The labels of the white Château George 7 in Fronsac illustrate a similar theme. Known for her 100% Merlot reds, as befits the Fronsac appellation, owner wine maker Sally Evans introduced a Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon blend in 2020.

Farmed sustainably since the creation of her vineyard in 2017, and HVE 3 certified, the launch of her white wine was an opportunity to go even further on her sustainability journey, to look at packaging, that represents about 35% of the carbon footprint of wine. Sally chose to use a lighter, 400g coloured glass bottle made with 87% recycled glass from a local supplier, cutting down on transport of empty bottles. The bottles are sealed with corks from pure cork off-cuts, bound with a 100% plant-based polyol and glue made from grape waste (skins and pips). The labels are printed on locally produced, recycled paper, and show the wild flowers that grow in and around the vines and hedgerow that was planted in 2018 to boost biodiversity. Keeping it in the family, the flower drawings were done by her late mother. The same design decorates the plain cardboard cartons made with 75% recycled fibre and the rest from certified forests, sealed with paper tape they are completely recyclable.

The bottle weight decision was an important one, and it echoes the challenges of perceived quality and the identity of Bordeaux wine. A wine may be considered of lesser quality in a lighter bottle, more myths for wine makers and marketers to dispel?

Xavier and Caroline Perromat celebrated their 10 years at the helm of Château de Cérons, with new labels for their Château de Calvimont. Named after the Marquis of Calvimont who built the 17th century château, these red and dry white Graves wines are made alongside the eponymous Cérons, their orange wine and their fun Quille range.

Their labels are a tribute to the diversity of flora across the Gironde, immortelles and arbousiers (strawberry trees) from the Arcachon basin and the leaves and helicopter seed heads of the big Maple tree in the park of the chateau, that shades the elegant picnics they host.

The estate was certified HVE3 and ISO 14001 in 2019, this year the 27ha of vines will be certified organic. Cover crops of wheat, barley, flax, borage and clover preserve soil microflora and fauna creating organic matter for the vines on a gravel plateau with a marine limestone subsoil, proudly overlooking the village of Cérons. Their labels aren’t the only way they share their historically natural environment.

A self-guided app based tour takes you through the property, the vines, the orchards, ancient quarries with their wild bee colonies and down to the banks of the Garonne. Then back to the stunning classified chateau for a tasting of the wines.

Floral bar code

This addition is a cheeky one, but I couldn’t resist, it’s not a label and nor is it made by a woman, but I love this bar code on the back of Château de Sours wines. Designed by graphic designer Pauline Lenain, it definitely has a floral theme. Les Essences is the new ‘entry’ range of the property concentrating on varietal identity and inspired by biodiversity of the estate and the gardens of the property. The slim bottles and transparent labels showcase the colours of the wines, the white and rose are glass stoppered. They do not look like classic Bordeaux.

Look again

Bordeaux isn’t the only wine region feeling the fallout from a global decrease in demand but, as the largest fine wine region of France, the shock waves here are important. There’s been criticism of how Bordeaux is stuck in the past and needs to innovate. Anyone who thinks Bordeaux isn’t innovating hasn’t visited for a while, not everyone is innovating, but the ones who are deserve a look?

Labelling isn’t the whole answer of course, the quality and price has to be right. For the wines above the container reflects the content. The wines are fresh, fruit forward, easy to drink and affordable. These labels, appeal to clients buying with their eyes first. Is the fact they don’t look like Bordeaux labels enough for these winemakers to get a foot in the door of wine shops who ‘have enough Bordeaux’ or past sommeliers who are continually searching for something new and different. Look no further!

 

 

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