The Clos de Tart buildings and vineyard rising directly behind the local village

A celebrated winery is acquired by one of the titans of the luxury industry. After a subtle transformation, Clos de Tart emerges with refreshed ancient buildings and upgraded winemaking. Darius Sanai visits François Pinault’s flagship estate in Burgundy. Photography by Martin Morrell

In the heart of the little village of Morey-Saint-Denis in eastern France, next to the old church and across the road from the boulangerie, is a very old, important-looking building with an archway entrance and an arched window set high in the facade, a cross-shaped window above. The village ends at this building, and beyond it are rows of vines, striped laterally across a hillside rising to a forest above.

The cross above the arched window, a reminder of the Cistercian nuns who ran the estate for centuries

This building is the winery of the Clos de Tart, a name close to the hearts of wine lovers, who for centuries have prized the Grand Cru Burgundy red wine made here in the vineyard behind. The vineyard itself is a monopole, an area owned by one single owner, itself a rarity in Burgundy, where patches of land are often split into strips for different owners.

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The Clos as we know it was founded in 1141 by winemaking Cistercian nuns, who ran it until the French Revolution in 1789. Their manual press, carved from wood like a giant olive press, is a highlight of any visit to Clos de Tart. The estate became even more celebrated in 2018, when it was bought by the Pinault family through its holding company, Artémis Domaines. Owners of Château Latour and Christie’s auction house, the Pinaults are also the second most powerful force in the luxury-goods group through a majority ownership of Kering, the group owning Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga and many other premium brands.

Views of the vineyard

Four years after the estate changed hands, I am sitting with Frédéric Engerer, CEO of Artémis Domaines and the man in charge of all the Pinault’s wine holdings, in an upstairs room in the winery, above a little courtyard, facing the vines. A refurbishment of the winery buildings has just been completed by Paris-based über interiors architect Bruno Moinard.

Details from the refurbishment by Bruno Moinard

The highlight of this gentle revitalisation is a tasting room on the upper floor of the main building, with windows looking out to the vines and trees beyond – a contrast to Burgundian lore that dictates that even the best wines are tasted in a damp, dark cellar with a view only of barrels.

Details at the estate

We are speaking ahead of a little concert planned at the winery that evening, featuring an octuor (octet) of musicians drawn from the Berlin Philharmonic and leading orchestras in France, an elegant celebration of the completion of the works. The Clos de Tart estate is another jewel in the crown of the Pinault family.

The refreshed cellar, photographed by Isabella Sheherazade Sanai

Quite aside from its holdings in luxury goods and art, its wine group now comprises one of the great estates of Bordeaux, in Château Latour; two Burgundy estates (Clos de Tart and Domaine d’Eugénie), the leading white-wine estate in the Rhône (Château Grillet) and a highly respected champagne house, Jacquesson. What next for Artémis Domaines, I ask?

The vat room containing the precious vats of Clos de Tart’s red Burgundy wine

After a raised eyebrow and a shrug, Engerer offers a little hint. “In Burgundy, we are so happy to be here in Clos de Tart, but we have only red wine with both Burgundy estates, so rebalancing the two colours a bit would be amazing. In the Rhône it is the other way around – only white…”

Views of the vineyard and the restored buildings at Clos de Tart

We should keep tuned for developments, it seems. Lovers of Clos de Tart should be in for a treat because the aim is to make one of Burgundy’s great wines – albeit one that doesn’t achieve the prices and desirability of its most famous labels, like La Tâche or a top Grand Cru Chambertin – even greater. But Engerer also wants to speak about the wine being made now.

Aspects of the revitalised tasting room and Old Press Room

Ever methodical, he first talks about the potential of the raw materials: the grapes grown in the 18.5-acre rectangle that is the Clos de Tart vineyard, just above us. At the foot of the slope, he says, “you have this reddish soil, it’s not very deep and there’s a lot of limestone underneath. And this makes the wines very delicate, very complex.

The tasting room and Old Press Room are a pinnacle of the estate’s elegantly simple renovation

There’s probably more complexity on the north side and a bit more structure on the south side. But even with those north/south differences, you move up the hill and the slope becomes much steeper at mid-point, and then you have deeper soil, and that’s where the sun heats the vines more and gives you a style that is richer, deeper, generally ripening a little bit earlier, with more muscle. And the muscle is even stronger when you go south than when you go north.”

Modernisation of the historic interiors by Bruno Moinard,

If that all sounds a little mind-boggling, it is, and Clos de Tart’s new guardians are in the process of working out just what potential they are sitting on. Engerer says a key development in the revived winery is the ability to make wines from small individual parcels of vines in the different positions in the vineyard, all the better to judge the balance of the final blend.

Viewpoints of the historic interiors, refurbished by Bruno Moinard

For the wine lover, the difference is in the tasting. Clos de Tart has always been a great Burgundy. But that evening, after the magical concert and as a sunny evening turned into a deep blue night, guests tasted some of the great vintages of the past, including 1990 and 2005.

A selection of vintages of Clos de Tart Grand Cru wines

We were also given a tasting of the first vintage made by Engerer’s team, headed by winemaker Alessandro Noli: the 2019. Just three years old, this should have been shy and immature compared to the past greats, but it just seemed like a more layered, more precise, more delineated and more delicious progression of the same elements.

Read more: A Tasting of the World’s Greatest Champagne Houses

Apparently, as the team understands the natural resources they have on their hands more with each year, things will only get better. In the meantime, we are more than happy to settle for a few cases of the 2019, ideally sipped over a rendition of Mendelssohn by eight talented musicians from the Octuor Éphémère, with the slopes of the Clos de Tart as a background.

Find out more: www.clos-de-tart.com 

This article first appeared in the Autumn/Winter 2022/23 issue of LUX

In 1141, Cistercian nuns from the Tart Abbey acquired the vineyards that later became Clos de Tart

Francois Pinault’s historic Burgundy estate hosts an evening of music and wine in the vineyards of Burgundy, to celebrate its renaissance. LUX Editor in Chief, Darius Sanai, joins an exclusive gathering.

Frédéric Engerer, CEO of the Pinault family’s Artemis Domaines wine estates group, held quite an evening to celebrate the revitalisation of the fabled Clos de Tart estate in Burgundy under the family’s aegis. The family headed by luxury goods magnate Francois Pinault, who also own Chateau Latour among others, bought Clos de Tart in 2018 and its centuries old buildings have been reworked lovingly to refresh their feel.

Frédéric Engerer, CEO of Artemis Domaines

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An orchestra known as the Octuor Ephemère, drawn from the ranks of the Berlin Philharmonic and orchestras in Paris, played a selection of pieces by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Duke Ellington to a small but highly exclusive crowd comprising some of Burgundy’s most celebrated wine estate owners and some of Artemis Domaines’ most significant clients from around the world.

The orchestra performing in a room at the 1200 year old wine estate, recently revitalised by Paris based architect to the stars, Bruno Moinard.

The wine itself, one of Burgundy’s most famous, made from 100% Pinot Noir from a single parcel of land above the buildings, is also receiving an upgrade to even dizzier heights with the help of newly appointed winemaker Alessandro Noli.

Some of the wine world superstars:
Jean-Marc Roulot, Frédéric Engerer, Pierre Morey, Jean-Louis Chave, Etienne de Montille, Éric Rousseau, Pablo Alvarez and Clos de Tart winemaker Alessandro Noli

The evening concluded – for agreeably long time – with a tasting from magnums of Clos de Tart from 1970, 1990, 1995, 2001, 2005 and 2015.

A unique programme among the vines in Burgundy

Read more: Top Picks from Bonhams’ Gstaad Sale

There was also a little bit of the 2019, Noli’s first vintage, on show. That was our favourite: even more layered, even more sensuous. We hope it’s not being disloyal to say we enjoyed the evening even more than parties over the years given by brands like Gucci and Bottega Veneta, owned by the family’s Kering Group. Santé!

Find out more: clos-de-tart.com

Photography by Isabella Sheherazade Sanai

Walking back after dinner. Image by Darius Sanai

Paris, the eternal city, never changes. Or perhaps it does. After a two-year hiatus, Darius Sanai notices some interesting happenings during a week of meetings with luxury CEOs, art dealers and creatives

Meeting an old friend for the first time in two years, I wonder if she will have aged and find her instead fizzing with renewed life.

The friend is Paris. I am here for the first time since just before the pandemic hit Europe. “Since Brexit, people are coming here instead of London because it’s easier to get a job,” says Kai, a graphic designer I bump into at a gallery opening. Estonian, she moved to the vibey/slightly scary 19th arrondissement from Dalston, in London, in September.

That doesn’t mean that Paris hasn’t suffered from city flight, like London, New York and most other metropolises. Prices of apartments in the centre of Paris are down 2.5% year on year. The sellers are not like Kai. They are wealthy and middle aged. Maybe an exchange of the wealthy bourgeoisie for edgy graphic designers in their 20s is the reason for the vivacity. Property prices in the dodgy/cool 19th are up 3.8%, from a much lower base.

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To dinner on the Left Bank with Francois Pinault’s CEO of Artemis Domaines wine estate group. Frédéric Engerer has Château Latour, the celebrated Eisele and Clos du Tart estates in Napa and Burgundy respectively, and several others, under his thumb. I get the feeling from Frédéric that these may not be the last: luxury goods titan Pinault is buying great wine estates like he once snapped up Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Saint Laurent.

At Les Climats, the Parisian restaurant with “the best wine list in the world”, according to numerous magazines, the sommelier at first doesn’t recognise Frédéric, who is arguably the most powerful man in French wine. This could have been embarrassing but Frédéric is understated, leafing through the list as anyone would. The penny drops. “Ah…sorry, I didn’t realise who…” stammers the sommelier. It’s fine.

We do a side-by-side blind tasting of his own Clos d’Eugenie against another excellent Burgundy. Frédéric and I both manage to identify both wines correctly, simple for him, and a 50/50 for me. Having had a bottle of champagne and two bottles of Burgundy on a Tuesday night, with meetings all day Wednesday, we decline the suggestion of a dessert wine.

Our suite at the Hotel Costes Castiglione. Image by Darius Sanai

Back at Hotel Costes, I am walking slightly unsteadily towards the lift in the arresting, Christian Liaigre-designed lobby of the new Castiglione wing, when I am greeted by someone walking out of the bar. After establishing I am who he thinks I am (two years absence and a compulsory face mask have that effect), Jean-Louis Costes invites me for a drink in his bar.

Over a late-night glass of Badoit, the man who first created a new vibe for Paris with the Hotel Costes in 1995 tells me his plans to expand the Costes even more. A boutique is becoming a palace. It’s also turning into my kind of place: I found the Jacques Garcia-designed original Costes a bit self-conscious, or perhaps it’s the people I met there over the years. The Castiglione, with its high ceilings, visual drama and flair, is Paris showing Dubai, London, New York and anywhere with pretensions of grandeur, how contemporary luxury style is done. If Marie Antoinette were alive and holding court in 2022, she would do it here. I reflect on how the most talked-about hotel in France among the social and media (and social media) sets is owned and run by a man who doesn’t do interviews (the profiles I did with him for LUX and Condé Nast Traveller in 2021 were the first he has ever done for the international press) and isn’t on social media.

Read more: Why you should get your new car ceramic coated

The next morning, I walk downstairs as Jean-Louis walks into the lobby. He offers me on a hard hat tour of the new spa and swimming pool, under construction beneath the hotel, and the next wing, to be a loft-style chill out zone, opening later this year. I promise to say nothing about them until the time. Only, the pool is very big and will be special. “I don’t want to build something for three people doing lengths,” he says. Jean-Louis reminds me of Nick Jones, founder of Soho House. He looks at the same space everyone else looks at, and sees an idea for something nobody else can see.

Bird’s eye view of Angie Kremer’s photoshoot for the next issue of LUX. Image by Darius Sanai

I walk to Montparnasse, to the Photo House studio where Angie Kremer, a happening young photographer and videographer, is doing a shoot for the next issue of LUX on young creatives in Paris. Gen Z Parisians entering the workforce seem far more open to culture and ideas from the rest of the world – and outside the Peripherique – than the previous generation of twenty somethings. A positive impact of social media.

Vanessa Guo & Jean-Mathieu Martini. Courtesy Galerie Marguo

Vanessa Guo and Jean-Mathieu Martini are not Gen Z. They are globally connected millennials on a mission. Vanessa, former director of Hauser & Wirth in Hong Kong, moved to Paris and opened Galerie Marguo in October 2020. The gallery is in in a former government building in the Marais and looks out onto a newly rebuilt courtyard – the Square Arnaud Beltrame – where public art and outdoor private views take place next to a kids’ playground. (No Takashi Murakami works here.)

Vanessa says a new generation of collectors is interested in collecting a new generation of artists. Back to Brexit: with taxes and paperwork on art in and out of the UK, Paris is vying to take over London’s preeminent role in the European art world. The collectors are coming here too, she says. So long a museum of culture and brands managed carefully by a closed elite, Paris is opening out. The imminent arrival of Art Basel, displacing the more local FIAC from its seat at the Grand Palais, will change things even more.

Installation view of “Ziping Wang: Obsession Indifference and Onionskin” at Galerie Marguo, Paris

Amin Jaffer, collector and curator of the sublime, is out of town this week so I can’t take him up on his invitation for tea at his beautiful home, where his art collection is so beguilingly put together that I never want to leave. Instead, he organises for me to have a tour of the new Al Thani collection, which he curated, at the (also) new Hôtel de la Marine. The building is on Place de la Concorde, directly in the centre of the north side. The collection is a sliver of the art from Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and surrounding regions, collected by Qatar’s ruling family over the last decades. It is presented delicately, clearly, warmly, with excellent descriptions that are both clear and authoritative. And have no “side”. Curators of far lesser intellectual worth writing dreadful, biased descriptions in some of the leading institutions of the Anglo-Saxon world should take note and learn from the Qataris, and Amin. I make a note to ask him to give me a personal tour next time.

Read more: Richard Curtis on the Power of Pensions

At meetings at Kering‘s HQ, at a former military hospital on Rue de Sèvres, I reflect that Francois-Henri Pinault’s sustainability strategy and introduction of environmental P&Ls for his brands felt revolutionary and a bit weird when I first spoke about them ten years ago. Now, it feels normal, the least you can do. Meanwhile the metaverse feels revolutionary and a bit weird now.

A sculpture at the Al Thani Collection. Photo by Darius Sanai

A final lunch with the LUX team and Angie Kremer at Château Voltaire. This new mini five-star hotel with 1970s themes is where Kanye West stayed for the last fashion week. I have tuna tataki with ponzu and frisée salad. Angie points out that frisée can misbehave when covered with dressing and goes for haricots verts. We plan a little party and exhibition for her shoot after the next issue is out.

Time to catch the Eurostar, where the security still doesn’t provide trays, so your Balenciaga coat sits on the conveyor and your Fragonard perfume bottle gets chewed up between the ramps.

At the Eurostar arrivals area of London St Pancras, the huge Dent clock above the Tracey Emin neon has stopped. It’s an easy omen for a writer. London hasn’t stopped, but in Paris, something has restarted.

By Darius Sanai, Editor-in-Chief

As a collector of, and investor in, wines, I like to serve interesting and unusual wines to my guests, as well as the classics. This can be a two-edged sword, however. Traditions burn powerfully, rooted as they are in brand and desired perception as much as they are in quality.

If a head of state or CEO wants to impress her guests, she (or her cellarmasters) are likely to choose a famous Bordeaux or Burgundy, as they would have 100 and even 200 years ago. (Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, amassed a fabulous collection of Bordeaux while living in France, including Chateau Latour, Lafite, and Haut-Brion, and had it all shipped to Virginia when he moved back.)

I tend to do the same to guests whose tastes are either traditional, or unknown to me. If I serve an important client I don’t know bottles of Hundred Acre Kayli, Sloan Estate, or Dalla Valle Maya over dinner, he is far less likely to be impressed a priori than if I serve him Lafite or Latour. A client with only a passing interest in wine may feel insulted that I am trying to trim costs, when in fact those three Napa Valley wines cost the same, and in some vintages, more, than the Bordeaux classics – and get the same, or better, scores from influential critics. The same applies to wines like Penfolds’ Grange – Penfolds is a supermarket brand, but Grange is most definitely not a supermarket wine – and Guigal’s Cote Rotie La Turque, La Landonne and La Mouline, known collectively as the “La Las”, commanding vast prices, but likely to be dismissed by non-geeks as “a Guigal” or “a Cote Rotie”.

So for a recent LUX dinner, thrown by LUX Editor-at-Large Gauhar Kapparova at Villa Giuseppina, her fabulous mansion on Lake Como, I decided to mix it. The guests, from Milan’s fashion and jewellery world, would be given a tasting that effectively pitted Napa Valley’s new aristocracy (or new money) against the world.

Villa Giuseppina on Lake Como, Italy

The average retail bottle price was in the hundreds of dollars (all would have cost in the thousands if purchased in a restaurant), and more than half the wines scored a perfect 100/100 from Robert Parker, the uber-critic. There was even a luxury sub-theme, as we pitted Chateau Latour, a Bordeaux First Growth, against Araujo Eisele, a Napa estate which has also been purchased by Chateau Latour owner and luxury magnate Francois Pinault. (I can already hear the voice of Frederic Engerer, esteemed President of Chateau Latour and all of Pinault’s wine holdings, pointing out that the Latour was a 1996, which predated his refresh of the winemaking there, and the Araujo was a 2009, which predates Pinault’s purchase of the estate: duly noted). But some of the wines were world-famous brands, and others were tiny-production bottles completely unknown to anyone but the deepest connoisseurs.

Among the guests were connoisseurs, collectors and mere drinkers and enjoyers of wine. The latter, for me, provide an excellent litmus test and counterpoint to the professionals, most of whom cannot afford to buy and enjoy these wines nowadays. Indeed, most successful businesspeople in the 40s or 50s with just a passing interest in wine have a far better knowledge of top wines than many Masters of Wine I have come across.

A selection of wines served at the LUX dinner in Italy

We didn’t make tasting notes or score the wines; at the end of the dinner I just asked each guest to reveal their favourite. The wines were not tasted blind, because I was too busy enjoying them and the guests’ company to wrap up the bottles!

The result was that there is no result: tastes in wine are as diverse as the people tasting them. The 1996 Chateau Latour took some plaudits, though I don’t know how much of that was led by brand. It was certainly very correct but lacking the flair I like to think Frederic has added. Penfolds’ Grange 2002 was also very popular, as was the Chambertin Grand Cru, Nicolas Potel, 2005, and, from the US, the Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 and the Dalla Valle Maya 2009. It’s always telling to see which bottles get finished first: I ended up drinking the Guigal Cote Rotie La Turque 1991 almost exclusively, wrapping myself in its velvet sheets.

There is a conclusion to draw, though, and it is that we should all be less conservative in what we serve. Buy some fabulous, lesser-known wines, take a few minutes to learn their story, and tell it to your guests yourself while your sommelier serves them. If nothing else it can brighten up a lull in conversation, and show an extra element to your character. Accompany these with the classics, by all means – the comparison is fascinating, and it will prove you’re not a skinflint – but do branch out. Stores like Hedonism Wines in London can help you. That where I helped Gauhar and her late husband Nurlan buy a good part of their fabulous cellar.

And if I serve you a wine you have never heard of next time you come to dinner, do take it personally. It means I think you’re smart and adventurous enough to appreciate it.

Editor’s note: All the wines in this tasting were purchased outright

The Villa Giuseppina Winter Tasting: The List:

The World:

Chambertin Grand Cru, Nicolas Potel, 2005

Falletto di Bruno Giacosa, Barbaresco, 2005

Cote Rotie “La Turque”, E. Guigal, 1991

Penfolds Grange, Shiraz, 2002

Chateau Leoville Poyferre 2003

Chateau Latour 1996

Napa:

Araujo Eisele Vineyard 2009

Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon 2010

Lokoya Cabernet Sauvignon, Diamond Mountain, 2009

Tor Beckstoffer To Kalon Cabernet Sauvignon, 2009

Hundred Acre Kayli Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

Dalla Valle Maya 2009

PS Can you guess the most expensive wine on this exclusive list? It’s one of the ones you’re less likely to have heard of: the La Turque, retailing at more than $12,000 a case.