Fast-forward to 2022 at the recently renovated château, where I tasted the 2000 once again, along with 15 more recent vintages up to 2019, and it is clear that later, post-2010 vintages display better tannic finesse, precision and palate density. Bishop has also noted improvement: ‘The 2010 is a great vintage, but I think everyone started taking notice in 2013, which was a difficult year in general for Bordeaux, yet Figeac stood out as a relative success. And then in 2015, Figeac produced a gem, and it has been consistently crafting some of the top wines of the appellation ever since.’ Those in high places evidently agree – the venerable property finally achieved its long-time goal of being promoted to the uppermost echelon of St-Emilion’s hierarchy (premier grand cru classé A) in September of this year. And nor is Bishop – or the classification committee – alone. Clyde Beffa Jr, co-owner of K&L Wine Merchants in California, who, like many, predicted the promotion, says, ‘Figeac is one of the most improved properties in Bordeaux over the last 10 years.’ 

While it’s hard to disagree, what I don’t share with trade contacts is the stark dividing line between the quality shown in recent years and that of historical vintages. To my – and many others’ – mind, the estate crafted great wines under the stewardship of Thierry Manoncourt, owner from 1947 until his passing in 2010. Manoncourt’s understated style reflected not only the estate’s singular terroir but also sheer refinement. And it was this quality that, from the late 1990s to late 2000s, offered a rare contrast to bigger Right Bank wines that were then in vogue and earning higher scores from Parker and others.  

Ever since the inaugural classification in the 1950s, Figeac was recognised as premier grand cru classé. The 54ha (133 acres) estate, with 41ha (101 acres) under vine, is also known as the most Médoc of the Right Bank, blending mostly Cabernet grapes over Merlot. The wine’s distinctive, ‘old Bordeaux’ style comes from complex soils: three warm gravel hills surrounding the estate offer natural drainage, while cooler blue clay subsoil provides nutrients for deep vine roots. Several microclimates and older vines (average age of 35 years) lend character. 

Comparing Figeac with most other St-Emilion wines, dominated by Merlot, is thus not easy. Cabernet Sauvignon provides Figeac with structure and ageing potential, with Médoc-like notes of cassis and graphite. Cabernet Franc exudes cherry and floral notes, elegance and freshness. While the Cabernets sculpt the body, strengthening the mid-palate grip with a taut and vibrant backbone, Merlot lends roundness and smoothness. 

At the time of the 2012 classification renewal, Parker still held sway in wine criticism circles, and the American had never rated the wines of Figeac as highly as those – more modern in style – produced by châteaux Angélus and Pavie, which duly joined Ausone and Cheval Blanc at the A level. Determined to overcome this lack of official promotion, the estate began its fine-tuning, which included the hiring of Michel Rolland as consultant. At the time of his appointment, Rolland told me how much he was looking forward to working with Figeac managing director Frédéric Faye – and that ‘staying in the B category is not my goal’. 

At the time, some long-term fans of Figeac’s more traditional style – such as Ben Giliberti, wine educator for Washington, DC importer Calvert Woodley and former Washington Post wine columnist – were concerned about the potential for drastic changes that would convert Figeac’s elegance to a more modern and oak-extracted style. That has not happened, though. Faye affirms that Michel Rolland has been ‘very careful’ with Figeac, having ‘fully integrated’ the vision of the Manoncourt family. For Faye, Rolland is ‘certainly the best blender I have ever met. It is an asset to have him with us, because Figeac is a complex wine to blend due to the three grape varieties in almost identical proportions.’ 

Today, Giliberti praises what he calls ‘a highly intelligent refinement of Figeac, rather than a revolution’. He points out the ‘great attention to important details of grape selection and ageing that were holding Figeac back in some vintages but, at the same time, [meant they adhered to] Figeac’s trademark Cabernet-centric formula’. 

For his part, Faye says the estate has ‘always produced great wines’, but fine-tuning in recent years has paid off. ‘The scope for qualitative improvement lies in details that go even further to highlight the uniqueness of the cru and its terroir purity,’ he says. Such refinement, Faye explains, includes improving tannin texture, aromatic expression and the ‘power of seduction in youth’ – long an issue in en primeur tastings for the slow-to-bloom Figeac – while ‘preserving the ageing potential and identity’.

All this work was vindicated in September this year. Following news of the promotion, however, it was telling that co-owners Marie-France Manoncourt (Thierry’s widow) and daughters Hortense Idoine Manoncourt and Blandine de Brier Manoncourt announced how ‘the Manoncourt family and the entire team have a special thought for Thierry Manoncourt, who ardently wished to see Figeac “in the right place”’. It was their husband and father, they said, who had ‘shaped the Château-Figeac of today and breathed into it the spirit of innovation, the uniqueness, the exacting standards and the authenticity that still reign’.

For all of the improvements of recent vintages, Château-Figeac’s true greatness is still bottled in the mythical 1947 vintage, made without today’s bells and whistles. Only such a great, old bottle could yield such sublime complexity, expressed in palate opulence and juicy succulence on a nose of sweet blackberry, baked cherry, stewed plum, dry fruit, potpourri spice, forest floor and leather. Thierry Manoncourt described the challenges of that vintage in a fascinating letter to journalist Mike Steinberger which Faye shared with me.

‘It was a great vintage, but fermentation was difficult because potential degrees quickly exceeded 30°C,’ he wrote. ‘This would have killed the natural yeasts, which transform sugars into alcohol, thereby yielding “residual sugars”, which would have become food for bacteria and created unpleasant results such as acetic acid, which makes vinegar,’ – an affliction that beset ‘even some famous grands crus’, he noted. In the immediate postwar years, temperature-control vats were not available, so Manoncourt added blocks of ice into the fermentation vats – about one metre long and ‘probably weighing 20 kilograms or more’ – which reduced the alcoholic degree and proved ‘better to make a good fermentation and a great wine’. For all those recent winemaking tweaks and the benefits of a new €15m cellar, sometimes it’s about letting the terroir speak…

This is a shortened version of an article published in the winter 2022/23 issue of Club Oenologique magazine. To see the full feature, pick up a copy of Issue 13 here.