Château Monestier La Tour has witnessed a great deal of history over the centuries. It has had periods of splendour, and there have also been difficult times. Recently, at the former owner’s initiative, the château benefited from a major restoration, and the vineyard was restructured.

The Scheufele family, being fully committed to the property and with a firm desire to continue moving forward, decided that the time had come to build new wine production facilities, of course making sure that they fitted in with the overall style of the château.

These have been designed in the spirit of the existing buildings and in harmony with the wine cycle: harvest reception area, vinification vat room, barrel-ageing room, bottle storage and a sales area.

Adjoining the covered harvest reception area, this consists of a series of vats whose special stainless steel finish enables easy cleaning and hence substantial water savings. Sixteen 98-hectolitre truncated-cone-shaped vats, and nine 62-hectolitre cylindrical vats ensure plenty of capacity for plot-by-plot vinification.

This precision enables further information to be gathered about each plot’s characteristics: the response to care in the vineyard, and possible improvements that might be made in the future.

We chose to have manual temperature regulation so that the vinification could be experienced in a back and forth manner between the terroir and the winemaker; a direct relationship, with no intermediary, to arrive at a more sincere, natural expression.

Historically, the barrel-ageing facility was in the outbuildings of the main residence, necessitating careful, time-consuming transfers of the barrels, during which the wine was unnecessarily disturbed.

Now it is located in the immediate vicinity of the vats, in the old vat room, which has been completely renovated. This enables the Côtes de Bergerac wines to age in complete tranquillity, in a perfect, air-conditioned environment.

Previously, the storage and labelling of the bottles were sub-contracted to an external service. These operations are now carried out on site in an insulated, air-conditioned facility, that has been planned with enough capacity to integrate the future production of the vineyard when it is completely restructured.

This also means that we can be more responsive and flexible in the handling of customers’ orders.