Reimagining Enotourism at La Maison Cardinale
At a time when tasting rooms are closing, experiences are becoming more and more rote, and the wine industry is losing drinkers hand over fist, there is reason to be pessimistic. The wine world has been largely the same for nearly a hundred years while everything around us changed dramatically. World wars were won and lost. Geopolitics shifted. New economies emerged. The television and the computer took the world by storm. The smartphone revolutionized education and entertainment. And yet, we still use traditional tasting mats. We still largely adhere to the same tasting method. Many still enforce the traditional way of evaluating a wine as being the only way to do so: look, smell, taste, discern. And even then? Only so many colors and aromas and tastes are considered acceptable. We continue to be stuffy, expensive, and elitist. We wonder why we’re losing drinkers when the answer is staring us in the face: wine is boring, confusing. And learning about wine in any way that isn’t an official certification is frowned upon. Beer is fun. So are cocktails. And non-alc is just getting started.
What the wine world needs is fresh eyes, modern thinking, and open doors. That’s exactly what I found when I met Caroline Decoster at La Maison Cardinale.
A New Saint-Émilion State of Mind
A bright, bubbly wife and mother only a few years my senior, she sits across from me in her family’s sunny, modern tasting room at Maison Cardinale in Saint-Émilion, her mind buzzing with ideas. She’d just finished giving me a private tour of the property, and while she did so happily, it soon became clear that her favorite thing about being the Commercial Director for the winery was not commercial or B2B at all – it was welcoming consumers.
“I’m not so much interested in the technical aspects,” she says with a soft smile. “I can talk about them, but I leave details to my husband. What I like the most is the fun in introducing people to our wines.”
Caroline is the second generation at Maison Cardinale but there is very little about her that would suggest an interest in tradition – besides perhaps la transmission – the idea that a winery goes from family to family in accordance with French custom. She has three daughters whom she hopes will take an interest in continuing the family’s work, but she isn’t herself a winemaker. Even her official title, “Commercial Director,” stops short in explaining what it is she really does. She is a visionary, a musician, a Loire Valley native, and someone who doesn’t find conventional wine tasting interesting. She’s the creative powerhouse behind some of Bordeaux’s most interesting tasting experiences – from a Polaroid scavenger hunt in the vineyards to a wine and music pairing experience featuring a proprietary evaluation worksheet Caroline created herself.
Indeed, even the literal pathway you walk on at the start of a visit to the winery is immersive. Down a long stone hallway, your guide – whether Caroline or another member of the team – will slowly walk alongside you, and, as they discuss the yearly cycles and season of the vines, you’ll hear the accompanying sounds and watch the vines change on the ceiling. Audio of clippers pruning the vines accompanies winter, birdsong and buzzing bees give new life in spring, and soft voices of vineyard workers follow you in summer. All the while, 3D artificial vines hang from the ceiling, “growing” and changing with each new season. The lobby of Maison Cardinale has multiple interactive toys that allow visitors to touch and feel the process of pruning with felt vines. Maison Cardinale’s approach to consumer experiences is so renowned that when it came time for Bordeaux to build its storied, one-of-a-kind wine museum, La Cité du Vin, they actually asked Caroline and her team for advice – which they gladly gave.
Welcome to the Bright Side
All this alone would surely be enough, but la maison does not stop there. The entire second floor of the property is as far away from a traditional tasting room as one could get. Comfortable, chic, and upscale, it is an immense living space full of couches, poufs, artwork, a kitchen, and even a formal dining room. “We wanted guests to feel like they were at home,” Caroline tells me, as I sit down to test one of the couches in the main room. It’s more comfortable than the one I have at home and the ambiance is warm, lively, and welcoming.
A group of American tourists circles around us, laughing, drinking, and asking questions. Now this – this – is surely what the heart of French wine in the 21st century should really look like: authentic conviviality. Everyone is welcome. No question is stupid. English isn’t scorned. There is pleasure in tasting as well as in simply existing in a beautiful place that feels graciously made and designed with you – the consumer, no matter your interest or wine education level – in mind. It’s a space that has hosted concerts, art exhibits, corporate team-building, and birthday parties. Not only is it in line with what the world’s top hotels are doing, but it is part of a brilliant business strategy that positions Maison Cardinale at the heart of the community in Saint-Émilion, making it a must-visit for both locals and tourists alike.
And still – the wines overdeliver. Caroline’s husband, Ludocvic Decoster, and the Maison’s new technical director, Ludivine Chagnon, are easily among a cohort making some of the most impressive wines in Saint-Émilion. Together, the couple did something unusual – if not unheard of – a few years ago: they planted Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon. With such limited space of official regional delineation in Saint-Émilion, many winemakers would never entertain the thought of sacrificing some of the world’s most legendary terroir for red grapes in favor of white ones. But Maison Cardinale’s 2023 Bordeaux Blanc was among the best white wines I tasted through my two week stay in the region. Mineral-driven, cool, and complex, I would have easily mistaken it for a Loire Valley Sancerre in a blind tasting. It makes sense, given that Caroline hails from the Loire; but make no mistake: these are some of the most impressive emerging Sauvignon Blanc wines in France and they have a distinct bordelais accent.
Nestled at the bottom of a hill in the heart of Saint-Émilion, you might miss La Maison Cardinale at first glance. It doesn’t have the stately, old-fashioned grandeur of so many of the region’s high-end houses, but it doesn’t want to look like them anyway. As the region of Bordeaux grapples with a one-two punch of climate change and lessening wine consumption, Maison Cardinale stands above the rest as a bastion of modernity, unwavering in its commitment to making exceptional wines from Saint-Émilion, yet constantly looking for the next step in an already successful evolution. Let’s just say that after my visit – and much to my husband’s chagrin – I ordered more than a few bottles from Maison Cardinale. When they arrive, I’ll put on one of my favorite songs, open a bottle, and follow Caroline’s music tasting method with a smile. If the wine world has a bright future, it’s most assuredly one that looks – and sounds – a lot like this.