THE BORDEAUX COUNTRYSIDE

At the Château de Malromé, the family’s summer residence acquired in 1883 by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s mother, Countess Adèle, the painter set up his studio, returning there every year from Parisian Montmartre until his death in 1901. His sketches and the countess’s porcelain still seem to inhabit these rooms; in the sunlit chambers, one can almost sense the artist’s presence.

The route begins right here at Malromé, where the light settles gently over the old plasterwork. In one of the rooms, Henri is said to have painted, directly onto the wall, the face of his mother’s cellarman, a joke that has outlasted the years. The countess’s drawing room remains almost exactly as she left it, its colours and textures still holding the quiet elegance of another century. The curtains and bed linen in her chamber, woven with botanical patterns, became for us a source of artistic inspiration.

A little further on, the Château Grand Barrail changes mood entirely. Behind its slender turrets lies the Salon Mauresque, its light filtering through stained glass made by the Bordeaux craftsmen Chauffrey Père & Fils. The mosaic, in amber, cobalt and burgundy tones, depicting a desert landscape, is a fantasy of faraway travels, told entirely through coloured glass that scatters a flickering light.

Further still, on the limestone plateau above Saint-Émilion, the Soutard estate opens onto an endless view across vineyards whose history dates back to 1513, among the oldest in the region, with vines planted in neat rows. From the eighteenth-century courtyard, one can still glimpse the wildness of the landscape once held back by those same disciplined rows of vine. Every October, harvest takes place in soft, slanting light that draws the local stone, the lush leaves and the sky into a single palette.