Destinations: the aristocratic Château de Brissac
27 August 2025
Les Ambassadeurs: Mayfair gaming club
2 September 2025Inspired by Wine and Art
French wine legend Bernard Magrez is bringing his own version of luxury tourism to the Bordeaux region
W
ith any luck, the chef hasn’t noticed the faint tremor in my hand as I edge the knife under the flesh of the red pepper, blade held at an acute angle. In theory, I’m removing an infinitesimally thin layer of the pepper’s rough, bubbled interior surface. In practice, I’m praying I’ll still have four fingers and a thumb on my left hand when I’ve finished.
French wine legend Bernard Magrez is bringing his own version of luxury tourism to the Bordeaux region
W ith any luck, the chef hasn’t noticed the faint tremor in my hand as I edge the knife under the flesh of the red pepper, blade held at an acute angle. In theory, I’m removing an infinitesimally thin layer of the pepper’s rough, bubbled interior surface. In practice, I’m praying I’ll still have four fingers and a thumb on my left hand when I’ve finished.
Why am I doing this? If you’ve eaten at some of the world’s finest restaurants, you’ll know the answer. No self-respecting red pepper is seen on a diner’s plate without first shaving off that unsightly inner stubble. Oh no. We Michelin-starred chefs don’t cut any corners.
Anyway, I’m not sure I can blame my working environment for any deficiencies in my culinary prep work. Sure, the kitchen is surprisingly small (there are five of us), and the mercury is edging into the mid-30s, but this room occupies a nook of Château Pape-Clément, the bricks and mortar of one of the most famous wine estates of Bordeaux.
Outside, the birds are singing in the impeccably manicured gardens, and the vines are stretching lazily in the sun, ready for this year’s eagerly awaited harvest.
Only the subtle bass rumble of passing traffic gives away the fact that Pape-Clément’s 13th-century rurality has become a defiantly verdant oasis, subsumed by the creeping modern metropolis of Bordeaux.
This region can claim to be the pre-eminent wine-producing area on earth, and yet the Bordelais have always been, well, rather weak at what is known as oenotourism. While the Napa Valley is California’s second-most popular tourist destination (behind Disneyland), the noble Crus Classés châteaux of the Médoc have remained, for the most part, somewhat aloof to the demands of the visitor.
Pape-Clément would like to change that. Or, more accurately, Bernard Magrez would like to change that. For my digit-endangering lesson in sous-chef expertise is part of a wide-ranging, cater-for-all-tastes luxury wine tourism venture created by Pape-Clément’s single-minded owner.
Outside, the birds are singing in the impeccably manicured gardens, and the vines are stretching lazily in the sun
If anyone would dare to do something as iconoclastic as actually encouraging people to visit and discover Bordeaux, it would be Magrez. The enfant terrible of this most conservative of wine regions (if you can still be an enfant in your mid-seventies), he’s a self-made man who amassed a fortune selling inexpensive Scotch whisky and even cheaper red Bordeaux, then changed tack after selling the business and becoming one of the richest men in France.
Magrez is now the only individual to own classed growth châteaux in four of Bordeaux’s appellations: Pape-Clément (Graves), La Tour Carnet (Haut-Médoc), Fombrauge (St-Emilion) and Clos Haut-Peyraguey (Sauternes). Add in a scattering of other Bordeaux domaines, plus wine estates as far-flung as Spain, Argentina, Morocco and Japan, and you will begin to understand why he is also known as ‘the man with 40 châteaux’ (which, by the way, is a slight under-estimate).
In Bordeaux, where tradition and understatement all too often become reactionary, he has ruffled feathers by adding back labels to his wines, alongside his name and picture. What is sniffed at as ‘poor form’ by some of the tweed-wearing locals would simply be called ‘marketing’ elsewhere.
In launching his luxury wine tourism venture, Magrez’s vision emphatically does not encompass bussing in coachloads of visitors for a quick look around the cellars and a glass of red prior to being ushered into the château gift shop.
Here the accent is on the bespoke, with a wide array of options open to the potential traveller, including – and this is where we came in – culinary classes with Pape-Clément’s own chef, Jérôme Bourcié. Most important of all, while many of Magrez’s neighbours might set the dogs on you if you strayed too close to their walls, here you can stay in the châteaux themselves. Each has its own character: Pape-Clément is grand, imposing, full-strength Bordeaux, awash with religious imagery that recalls the former vineyard owner Bertrand de Goth, later Pope Clément V.
This air of ecclesiastical grandeur is joined by the elegance of the five suites: L’Égrégore, for instance, marries leafy, pastel shades to a fine collection of Bernard Buffet paintings on the walls. La Tour Carnet’s newly opened bedchamber plays on the Haut-Médoc château’s medieval past (this is one of the oldest properties in the area), its intricately carved four-poster and terracotta tiles paying homage to the château’s moat, drawbridge and fortifications.
If anyone would dare to do something as iconoclastic as actually encouraging people to visit and discover Bordeaux, it would be Magrez
Moving around between the Magrez properties – the Bordeaux wine region is a surprisingly big and confusing place to the first-time visitor – is most easily and swiftly accomplished by helicopter, but this is only one of the potential modes of transport on offer. If you want to brave the Bordeaux traffic, a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Phantom (Magrez also collects cars) or a 1950s Bentley should ease the pain of the commute to a Bordeaux restaurant. Although you might find it difficult to tear yourself away from Bourcié’s exquisitely understated dishes, or the sumptuous picnics in the château gardens.
Transportation is a recurring theme in the Magrez experience: besides the Rolls and the helicopter, you can visit Bordeaux or cruise down the Gironde estuary in a Hacker craft or, in more sedate fashion, take to a traditional flat-bottomed pinasse boat to explore the Bay of Arcachon’s mix of oyster beds, cabanes tchanquées (houses on stilts) and ornithological attractions.
And if the thought of boarding a scheduled flight to Bordeaux is all too much, Magrez’s Falcon 50 business jet is available to fly travellers in from major capital cities.
All the elements of luxury tourism are there, but the common threads running through the entire operation are Magrez’s twin passions: wine and art. Wine is, of course, the unifying factor behind the châteaux themselves, from Pape-Clément’s rich, age-worthy opulence to the riper, earthier flavours of Fombrauge (but don’t ignore the hugely underrated whites).
And art is everywhere – an eclectic mix scattered throughout the rooms and corridors of the châteaux, and most notably at Château Labottière, home to L’Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, which receives artists in residence, as well as holding exhibitions of modern works from private and public collections, notably that of Magrez himself.
An hour or two after my ham-fisted attempts at culinary excellence, and we’re able to enjoy the fruits of our collective labours (salle d’agneau with a chorizo jus, since you ask) in Pape-Clément’s refined but homely dining room. It’s a dish of deceptive simplicity and a perfect foil for a bottle of 2007 Pape-Clément. And the diced red pepper, I thought, was particularly exquisite.
Words: Staff
The Information
It would be well-nigh impossible to list the full array of options offered by Bernard Magrez Luxury Wine Tourism, but here is a sample. Prices are correct at time of writing. Visit luxurywinetourism.fr for more information. Vie de ChâteauA day and a night at Pape-Clément, including tour, tasting, lunch, Rolls-Royce tour of Bordeaux, dinner and accommodation (from €1,290 [£,1,100] per person, excluding wines). Secrets de Grands Crus
A three-day visit, including dinner and one night at Pape-Clément, cellar tour, picnic in château gardens, tour of Château Fombrauge and of the historic town of St-Emilion, dinner and one night at Fombrauge, visit and lunch at Château La Tour Carnet (from €2,490 per person, excluding wines). L’Échappée Belle
Four days, including two nights at Pape-Clément and one at Fombrauge, plus cellar tour, visit and dinner in Bordeaux, meals at châteaux – transported in Magrez’s Rolls-Royce Phantom (from €3,590 per person, excluding wines). Envolée d’Exception
A three-day package with a helicopter flight over Bordeaux’s most famous appellations, a tour in a Rolls-Royce, a walking tour of Bordeaux and visits to four Magrez châteaux: Pape-Clément, La Tour Carnet, Fombrauge and Pérenne (from €6,190 per person, excluding wines).