It’s rare that a wine can tell a story different enough from the rest to arouse curiosity. But the wines from the Domaine d’Aussières are the sum of a unique series of circumstances, ambitious decisions, a partnership with nature and the knowledge, intense desire and perseverance to produce something exceptional.
When the Rothschild family visited Aussières in 1999 the buildings were crumbling and the land, long since untended, lay overgrown. But what appeared was an untamed beauty with a history and a soul, and fertile land for grapes to grow.
The estate lay in a hollow of the rugged hills just behind the Mediterranean coastline, in the south of France. Beneath its high rocks, where a pair of royal eagles’ nest, stood small oaks, pines and juniper battered by the wind and the essence of wild rosemary, thyme and lavender evaporating under the burning sun. The 173 hectares at the center of the estate had been used to grow grapes for the better part of the last 2000 years and were now a unique opportunity to bring the spirit of Lafite and rebuild a substantial winery i n a microclimate like nowhere else in the world.