Drawing a glass of cloudy liquid from one of her giant concrete eggs, Dr Magali Picard passionately explains her approach to malolactic fermentation and time on lees. We’re in Maison Lineti’s impressive ‘egg box’ on the Right Bank in Bordeaux, a stone’s throw from St-Emilion’s celebrated châteaux. None of this is particularly unusual except Picard is not talking about wine; this is single-malt whisky, made by one of the world’s most experimental and exciting emerging distillers.
Together with her partner Alex Cosculluela, Picard has been fusing wine- and whisky-making techniques since first firing the stills at their boutique, avant-garde distillery in Les Artiguesde-Lussac in 2022. It won’t be long now before their first wine-inspired single malts are released and the world is introduced to a new, oenological way of appreciating whisky
Picard and Cosculluela’s visionary partnership is a marriage of expertise, with Cosculluela’s business experience in wine sales the perfect pairing for Picard’s scientific acumen; she holds a degree in chemical engineering and a PhD in oenology, and she spends half her time as Demptos Cooperage’s spirit research and development manager.
Together with their partners François and Edward Thienpont, whose family owns numerous wineries including the nearby Vieux Château Certan in Pomerol, and former sales manager Xavier Payan, the ownership team boasts enviable experience in all aspects of the wine industry. This is why, at first glance, their foray into whisky is somewhat unexpected.
‘We like whisky, but it’s also a product where we can innovate,’ explains Cosculluela. ‘Tradition in Bordeaux is very important, whereas whisky in Bordeaux is quite new. After a few months of discussion, we decided to create a whisky distillery in St-Emilion because we wanted to keep a link with grand cru.’
Despite the fact that its prime location is surrounded by notable vineyards, Maison Lineti, which began production in 2022, is not simply a product of its geography. ‘We don’t want to be a Bordeaux whisky,’ explains Cosculluela, adding that they cannot even communicate their location within St-Emilion because it’s a protected appellation. ‘You should only promote terroir and a region for a distillery when 100% of the process is done there. Our barley is from the centre of France because it’s impossible to grow in Bordeaux. Imagine the price!’
Maison Lineti’s wine-led approaches could be the first genuine whisky innovations since the cask finish
Instead, it’s the traditions, culture, approach and savoir-faire that make Maison Lineti (an anagram of ‘Saint-Emilion’) a spirit of Bordeaux. This is whisky reinvented using techniques borrowed from wine: lees ageing, malolactic fermentation and a borrowed oenological vocabulary that references the spirit’s tension, acidity and drinkability.
These are realms unfamiliar to the average distiller, yet Maison Lineti’s approach is attracting the attention of both the wine and whisky communities. ‘The first reaction from Bordeaux winemakers was, “What are they doing?”’ says Picard with a laugh. ‘Now there are two types of reaction when people visit us. The wine visitors are very impressed by our stills, but whisky visitors are more impressed by our eggs.’
Rather than using the traditional wooden or stainless-steel washbacks seen in Scotland, fermentation takes place in seven giant, white concrete eggs. Maison Lineti is thought to be the world’s first whisky distillery to adopt the equipment that’s more commonly seen in wineries, but this isn’t just gimmickry. The epoxy resin-lined concrete’s natural thermal regulation maintains a perfect constant temperature, while the smooth shape allows for natural convection, keeping the yeast in a constant state of flux so as to promote the creation of more complex flavours.
The egg itself is just the beginning of Maison Lineti’s wine-led approach to fermentation. Picard and her team use three different processes to create a multitude of recipes for their wash: cold stabulation (prior to fermentation, the wort is chilled overnight to separate the heavy solids and increase flavours of tropical fruit and citrus), malolactic fermentation (the addition of lactic acid to amplify acidity and complex floral aromas), and lees ageing (a 14-day rest period following fermentation to allow the dead yeast to contribute creamy, buttery textures and rounded fruit notes).
All three techniques are used to produce different styles of wash that carry varying aromatic profiles, with floral qualities of rose and jasmine at their heart. ‘In wine, cold stabulation is like Sancerre – fresh and clean – while lees ageing is like Chardonnay – rich and fatty,’ explains Picard, who goes on to reveal that trials of all processes, including blending them together, are still ongoing. The resulting wash is then doubledistilled on a pair of Charentais copper pot stills that are commonly used in the Cognac industry but rarely in whisky. These stills are run gentle and slow, with condensation through a worm tub to add a rich, oily mouthfeel to the new make.
The spirit is then placed into a variety of casks, everything from ex-bourbon, Port and Oloroso Sherry to experimental new French oak barrels, including Paradox (a deeply toasted cask unique to Demptos Cooperage) and Essencia (another Demptos exclusive that contains a high concentration of carotenoids that give the whisky a subtle pink hue and aromas of Parma violets). There is, however, one glaring exception when it comes to maturation. ‘We don’t use wine casks, because sulphur compounds may be present,’ Picard explains. ‘Sulphur is depreciable for the whisky, so we use only casks previously used for oxidative wines like Port or Oloroso.’
For Maison Lineti, the bulk of the work is complete before the spirit even touches the cask. ‘The steps before maturation are the most important, because we have to create a new make that’s able to support the impact of the wood and mature fast,’ says Cosculluela. ‘In Bordeaux, we talk a lot about drinkability. Your cru has to be good when young and excellent when old. In the whisky process, it’s the same. We can’t wait ten years to launch a bottle because the whisky isn’t ready. We want to work on the drinkability at a young age, so the new make has to be good when it leaves the stills. When you’re from Bordeaux, a wine lover will expect that.’
This really is whisky-making through a grape-filtered lens, and just as the organoleptic qualities of wines differ from year to year, so too will single malts from Maison Lineti. Unlike pretty much all other whisky distilleries around the world that choose to focus on crafting a consistent product from batch to batch, Picard will adapt her spirit’s recipe every year to curate an album of vintages that explore the multitude of flavours that can be crafted within the distillery.
‘In Scotch, they always want to reproduce what the generation before did, but we want to be different and produce a vintage whisky where each recipe changes,’ Cosculluela says. ‘The distillery will evolve every year: we are better in 2025 than we were in 2023, and the consumer needs to benefit from this progress of Maison Lineti and our team. We want to highlight how we can change the impact of whisky-making without talking about only wood.’
Maison Lineti’s wine-led approaches could be the first genuine innovations to come from whisky since the emergence of the now done-to-death cask finish. It could be tempting for Picard and Cosculluela to keep these techniques to themselves – they are applying for a patent for their lees ageing after all – but science is in their DNA, and good scientists share their research.
‘The science in the whisky industry is not as democratised as it is in wine,’ says Picard, who spent her lockdown days penning a series of Master Notes publications, freely available technical papers breaking down complex facets of whisky production. ‘For the moment, the Master Notes are built on information I found in literature, but in the future we’d like to issue technical notes on things like our lees ageing and cold stabulation. We want to share what we learn at Maison Lineti.’
Maison Lineti’s wine-led approaches could be the first genuine whisky innovations since the cask finish. Soon enough, these learnings will be available not only as Master Notes but as bottled whiskies, too. As part of its devotion to transparency, Maison Lineti has already outlined plans for its first releases next year.
The inaugural Maison Lineti to launch in March 2026 will be Ouverture, a ‘fresh, floral and fruity cuvée’ made using long and malolactic fermentation and matured in a mix of ex-bourbon and new American oak. ‘We want to have something really easy for consumers to taste that’s accessible for everyone,’ says Cosculluela. For those excited to explore Maison Lineti’s various experiments, Ouverture will be accompanied by a selection of small-batch releases, including a long fermentation matured in Oloroso, a 100% lees-aged spirit matured in ex-bourbon, and a blend of long and malolactic fermentation with lees ageing matured in new American oak. These releases are designed to ‘prepare and educate consumers’ about Maison Lineti’s avant-garde approach ahead of its first vintage expression in September 2026, which will be released gradually over several years in a series of continuously maturing ‘chapters’. These chapters will be released at three, five, eight, ten and 12 years old, creating a rare vertical tasting inspired by fine wine that explores the effects of time and cask on each vintage.
In the meantime, Maison Lineti is offering an opportunity for investors to own their own cask through the Fine Drops private cask programme. Currently ex-bourbon and Oloroso casks from the 2023 vintage are available to purchase, with storage for up to ten years. Casks from the 2024 vintage (a ‘more subtle and elegant’ spirit than 2023) will be available for purchase in 2027.
Picard and Cosculluela are a couple with a clear vision, one that the world’s most creative whisky minds are set to discover when Maison Lineti hosts the sixth annual World Whisky Forum in June. ‘It’s a good opportunity to have some feedback about our product and whisky before the launch,’ Cosculluela says.
Despite being the cat among the pigeons, or un pavé dans la mare, Maison Lineti has already won over the hearts of the Bordelais. Now the challenge is to convince the world that wine and whisky aren’t so different after all, and that French single malt truly can be crafted using grand cru techniques.
For more information on Maison Lineti’s Fine Drops programme, visit maison-lineti.com/en/fine-drops
