Thanks to their total immersion among the Château Latour team for nearly two years, photographers Lothar Baumgarten and Patrick Faigenbaum guide readers from the gathering of vine prunings early one foggy winter’s morning to the grape-harvest including the grounds’ springtime work and horse-drawn labour in the summer.

Punctuating this journey, a number of texts relate the history and the development of this Premier Grand Cru Classé. Jean-Robert Pitte (president of the Académie du Vin de France) deciphers the invention of the terroir of Latour, while Roland Pilloni (author) takes us back in time to the origins of the domain (14th century). Michel Serres (philosopher) poetically depicts various wine-growing themes from the invention of the cork to the workings of plants’ inner clocks; and finally, Michel Bettane (critic) and Alain Passard (Chef of L’Arpège) allow us to live some of their most memorable gustative experiences from different millennia and highlight the particularity of this vintage wine.

Situated in Pauillac in the Gironde’s department, it is one of the rare grand vineyards to have been established by two families and consistently handed down through the generations: in 1571, the Mullet family started to produce wine on the land of the seigneury of the Tour de Saint-Maubert. In the early 18th century, the Ségur family later developed a sizeable vineyard and Château Latour acquired its status as a Premier Grand Cru Classé of the Médoc in 1855. At the instigation of François Pinault, who became the owner of the domain in 1993, and with Frédéric Engerer as general manager, major renovations maximised the quality standards, research and innovation of the domain and broadened our knowledge of this exceptional terroir.