Château Les Hauts d’Aglan

The estate we know today as Château les Haut d’Aglan is the agglomeration of the vines Isabelle Rey-Auriat’s mother and father inherited from their respective families: her father’s vines originating from the low hillside, and her mother’s, from the high hillside. In the Pays de Cocagne, where almost anything can grow and thrive, Isabelle’s family farmed several different crops, but the time her parents married and joined the estates, they were down to corn, mangetout peas, and grapes. Her retired grandparents still had pigs, ducks, cows, and other animals, but more for cooking purposes than business.

When Isabelle finished high school she went on to study business in Toulouse, where she met her husband. Every weekend they would drive two and a half hours back to Cahors for “real” meals. Among her grandmothers’ finest preparations were poule au pot and poitrine de veau farci, complex dishes that simmered for days in their country kitchens. Isabelle and her husband found it harder and harder to be so far away from life at Haut d’Aglan where the family continued to gather for twice-daily Michelin-caliber meals. Then in 1994, the couple finally came to terms with what today would seem like a more obvious choice: they moved back to Isabelle’s family’s home to tend to the vines and bottle the juice.

Isabelle describes herself as someone who knows what she wants, an adaptive personality trait she acquired, because as a 25-year-old woman taking over a vineyard, “there’s always someone to tell you how to do things.” So while she was fortunate to have her family around to show her the ropes, Isabelle says it’s important to learn to do things your own way, and that only happens over time and with lots of personal investment.

With no time to cook such elaborate meals as her grandmothers, nor claiming to hold the same level of talent, Isabelle traded the cows, pigs, and ducks for her two dogs to trail her up, down and through the 14 hectares of hillside vines she had devoted herself to. Today, she’s accompanied by a small crew to help farm each plot organically — a more rigorous practice implemented by the new generation — seeking to turn out wines that reflect the place from which they’re born and live gracefully in the bottle.

After a long day, Isabelle climbs to the highest hillside vines. The clouds come in and the silver light casts down on the lower parcels. “Nature has a lot to teach us, if only we choose to listen“, she reflects. Then she returns home, where much to Isabelle’s delight, her husband also happens to be an excellent cook.