Le Dôme

The château

Jonathan Maltus was born in Nigeria, raised in England and trained in the petrochemical business before he came to Saint-Émilion. He found his place among the garagistes of the 1990s, the small band who made history in Bordeaux without a 17th-century château, and his own contribution was the single-vineyard micro-cuvée. He was appointed to the Order of the British Empire for his winemaking. He works with the enologists Neil Whyte, Gilles Pauquet and Thomas Duclos and the viticulturist Olivier Darcy.

Le Dôme is a single vineyard on clay and limestone, about 80% Cabernet Franc and the rest Merlot; new vines, grafted from the old, are planted among the oldest. The vines are leaf-thinned and green-harvested 2 times a year, down to 3 or 4 bunches a vine, and the team passes more than 10 times through each row in a season; the grapes are picked and sorted by hand, and the estate holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. About 2,500 cases are released each vintage.

The winery, conceived by Maltus and designed by Norman Foster, is a dome 40 meters across, partly sunk into the earth to keep it cool, under a roof of interwoven French oak beams covered with terracotta tiles saved from the ruin it replaced. A central atrium 6 meters wide holds 12 temperature-controlled vats and a laboratory, with the barrel cellars on either side.

At a glance

Appellation

Saint-Émilion Grand Cru

Commune

Saint-Émilion

Classification

No classification; not in the list of 2022

Owner

Jonathan Maltus

Consultants

Neil Whyte, Gilles Pauquet and Thomas Duclos, enologists; Olivier Darcy, viticulturist

Soil

Clay and limestone Terroir of Saint-Émilion →

Grapes

Cabernet Franc about 80%, Merlot about 20%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3; picked by hand

Cellar

A dome 40 meters across by Norman Foster; 12 temperature-controlled vats

Production

About 2,500 cases a vintage