LVMH's new wine and spirits e-commerce site brings the taste of France's countryside to your table. 

At Ch&acirc;teau d&rsquo;Yquem, the 15th-century estate nestled into southern Bordeaux&rsquo;s rolling green&nbsp;fields, it&rsquo;s the ugliest grapes that give the sweetest wine. Purplish-yellow like the vivid hues of a&nbsp;fading bruise, the fungus-festered fruits hang from the vines shriveled and carpeted in a thin&nbsp;layer of grayish fuzz. One of Mother Nature&rsquo;s strangest surprises, this mold turns to gold. These&nbsp;infected grapes are the secret behind one of the world&rsquo;s most coveted sweet white wines,&nbsp;Ch&acirc;teau d&rsquo;Yquem, the only wine in the Sauternes 1855 appellation with the distinction of&nbsp;Premier Cru Sup&eacute;rieur.

Our private afternoon in the ch&acirc;teau was part of a grander tour of the region dreamt up by&nbsp;<a href="http://clos19.com/">Clos19</a>, a new venture launched by&nbsp;Stephanie Watine Arnault, which combines exclusive&nbsp;access to maisons and chateaux in the LVMH portfolio (Stephanie is LVMH&nbsp;CEO Bernard&nbsp;Arnault&rsquo;s niece) with a curated approach to&nbsp;gastronomy and travel. An entirely private visit and&nbsp;access to&nbsp;those who manage the estate, for example, at Ch&acirc;teau&nbsp;d&rsquo;Yquem, outside of a Clos19&nbsp;experience, is available only by invitation. We tasted a wide range of different d&rsquo;Yquem&nbsp;vintages, as well as the Chateau&rsquo;s younger progeny Y, pronounced ee-grek, a dryer white blend&nbsp;that the house introduced in 1959. This&nbsp;elegant, energetic, and enigmatic wine is much paler&nbsp;than the unmistakable amber hue of the house&rsquo;s namesake ambrosia.&nbsp;That afternoon, the&nbsp;angled October light caught d&rsquo;Yquem&rsquo;s rich yellow color like a fish hook in an eye.

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It was a thrill to take a walk in the fields to see where these ugly-duckling grapes grow. Plucking&nbsp;the desiccated fruits from the vine and pressing their woolly skins into your tongue, a rush of&nbsp;adrenaline accompanies putting something that looks absolutely rotten between your lips. It stirs&nbsp;up the same sort of flutter in your chest that comes right before you jump off a cliff into an&nbsp;ocean. It&rsquo;s consciousness-expanding, too, realizing something which looks so foul could&nbsp;possibly taste so heavenly.

 
The phenomenon known as &ldquo;noble rot,&rdquo; found only in the appellation from where Sauternes&nbsp;derive, sees early-morning fog drifting across the vineyard rows, creating the perfect conditions&nbsp;for this hyperlocal fungus to thrive. Sucking water from their host grapes, a mix of S&eacute;millon and&nbsp;Sauvignon blanc varieties, this dehydrating botrytis impresses a unique route to high-sugar&nbsp;content. While the sugariness of other sweet wines comes from a late harvest, the infected&nbsp;grapes transformed into Sauternes like d&rsquo;Yquem are plucked from the vines around late&nbsp;September to early October, ensuring a nectar sweet but not cloying.&nbsp;

Château d’Yquem

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Maintaining the house lives up to its 300-year-old winemaking reputation, Pierre Lurton, from&nbsp;one of Bordeaux&rsquo;s most famed wine families, heads operations at Ch&acirc;teau d&rsquo;Yquem. He&rsquo;s also&nbsp;the winemaker at Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc, about an hour&rsquo;s drive away, in the Saint-&Eacute;milion&nbsp;appellation. We were fortunate enough to visit Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc and meet him (a visit and&nbsp;encounter which is the exception rather than the rule). It was there at Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc on&nbsp;the property adorned with red roses, that Lurton gave us an intimate audience. With a rugged&nbsp;square jaw and a&nbsp;charming French accent, the winemaker is a natural raconteur. He had one&nbsp;story about a fox terrier latching itself on to the cuff of someone&rsquo;s trousers, another about when&nbsp;he first showed up on the doorstep of Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc. Interviewing for a job there at only&nbsp;32, they noted his family name was so famous, maybe it&rsquo;s possible, they suggested, he could&nbsp;use his mother&rsquo;s maiden name. He could, he offered, but his mother&rsquo;s name is Lafite. The irony,&nbsp;of course, is that Lafite is another of Bordeaux&rsquo;s oldest winemaking families.&nbsp;Though named after a white horse, Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc is a red wine, primarily a mix of&nbsp;Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Lurton, who says he favors picking the Merlot early and the Cab&nbsp;late, describes the resulting elixir&rsquo;s tannins as &ldquo;like cashmere.&rdquo; With the distinction of Premier&nbsp;Grand Cru Classe A, Cheval Blanc is the most sought after Saint-&Eacute;milion and its 1947 vintage is&nbsp;celebrated as perhaps the&nbsp;greatest wine in the world. In their constant pursuit of perfection, over&nbsp;the last decade, the house underwent a major renovation of its winery, soliciting French&nbsp;architect Christian de Portzamparc to build a state-of-the-art facility. While its modern concrete&nbsp;design juxtaposes the historic ch&acirc;teau, its sinuous design imitates the gentle hills of the&nbsp;surrounding pastoral landscape. Inside the cellar, the concrete tanks built for aging fermenting&nbsp;the grapes, echo these same curves.

Château Cheval Blan

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The diversity of terroir encompassed in the 100-acre vineyard, including eleven different types&nbsp;of soil, is one of the factors that goes into making Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc such an outstanding&nbsp;wine. When Lurton first became the house&rsquo;s winemaker, his uncle told him the terroir is so good,&nbsp;even if you make many mistakes, the wine will still probably turn out alright. He laughs&nbsp;recounting the story of familial teasing. But of course, the extreme attention to detail in Lurton&rsquo;s 
winemaking process minimizes the risk of error. The decision for when to pick grapes in a&nbsp;particular plot of vineyard land, for instance, is left for the very last minute to ensure the harvest&nbsp;has exactly the desirable sugars, aromatics, and tannins. The workers who pick these grapes by&nbsp;hand are informed only the night before by text message&mdash;another example of the immersion of&nbsp;tradition and modernity at Ch&acirc;teau Cheval Blanc.

 
All the while stimulated by these storied lessons on winemaking, the expansiveness of the&nbsp;French countryside&rsquo;s seemingly infinite fields of green puts one unassailably at ease. The days&nbsp;and nights were filled with countless&nbsp;highlights: The morning fog on the lake just after sunrise at&nbsp;Domaine des Etangs&mdash;an 11th-century ch&acirc;teau oozing with rustic elegance in Bordeaux-neighboring Massignac, or the bottle of smokey 1998 Dom Ruinart we shared the night&nbsp;before.

The earthly smell of the pond at Les Sources de Caudalie, or the rejuvenating salt water pools&nbsp;at the Bordeaux property&rsquo;s famed spa. Clos19&rsquo;s tour was curated for the mind and soul, the&nbsp;palate and psyche. It was the kind of multi-sensorial experience that urged you to put your&nbsp;smartphone away and revel in the moment, but still there was the perfect dish for&nbsp;Instagramming, foie gras in the shape of a kumquat at Domaine des Etangs&rsquo;s Dyades&nbsp;restaurant, as delicious as it was photogenic.

 
Amidst, all the champagne and caviar, the exclusive access and enviable vintages, there was&nbsp;one small detail on the trip that was as stirring as it was simple. During dinner at La Grand&nbsp;Vigne, the restaurant at Les Sources de Caudalie which boasts two Michelin stars, between&nbsp;courses, the server appeared with a silver platter of geranium leaves&mdash;to set the mood for the&nbsp;next dish, she explained. They felt like velvet and smelt like peppermint. I wrapped the leaf in&nbsp;my purse after and took it back to my room after dinner. Placing it inside the hotel&rsquo;s bedside&nbsp;table drawer, I thought of Brett in The Sun Also Rises and her bull&rsquo;s ear. Eventually, the spicy&nbsp;scent of the geranium leaf faded but its literary echoes&nbsp;lingered long after I&rsquo;d boarded a plane&nbsp;back to New York.

 
Please visit <a href="http://www.clos19.com">www.clos19.com</a> for details of the Clos19 itinerary available.

Clos19 Takes Us on a Tour of Bordeaux's Best Wineries

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