Château Figeac — Attraction in Libourne

As we were travelling to the Left Bank and rather pressed for time on the day of our tasting, we tried to switch to a 60-minute tour instead of the 90-minute one we'd originally booked. We're so glad that we stuck with the longer tour of this marvellous family-run vineyard in the end!

It was absolutely wonderful learning about the history of Chateau Figeac and its wines from our extremely knowledgeable guide Gwen. We could really feel her passion for wine and her pride in the vineyard. We were also extremely lucky because they had just started harvesting and we got a behind the scenes peek into the production process. My husband was particularly impressed by the optical scanner that blazed away, sorting 1600 grapes per second. To top off this amazing experience, in came Madame Manoncourt herself to the tasting room. She was very excited about the harvest, and very sweetly obliged when we asked for a photo with her!

And of course, the highlight – the tasting. Both Chateau Figeac and Petit Figeac, their second wine, were so delicious they were easily among my favourite wines from our trip. We were prepared to order a couple of cases home but alas they don't sell their wines at the vineyard. We'll definitely be hunting them down...

It is interesting to visit a big “chateau” like Figeac. But the overall experience considering the price to take a look around and to have a few sips of wine, is overpriced. There is no pairing of cheese or anything with the wine, and I even had to ask for water because they didn't bring some to the wine tasting. You can get a similar experience in other chateau for a more...

So happy to see Figeac on a great run of vintages. My main memory is of meeting Thierry Manoncourt in the late 80s, such a Gentleman and l hope his long held dream comes true soon! Also there was a tradition to taste a vintage with some bottle age. A...