Once famously disparaged by Robert Parker, Pauillac fifth growth Château Pédesclaux has been transformed under the ownership of the Lorenzetti family, thanks to canny vineyard acquisitions and ongoing ‘Cabernisation’. Richard Woodard reports. It’s not the most obvious way to begin a presentation about a Bordeaux wine château: flashing up images of two of the most famous names in English rugby union, Owen Farrell and Stuart Lancaster. But the connection is there, and it’s topical. Jacky Lorenzetti, the former real estate tycoon who owns Pauillac fifth growth Château Pédesclaux, is also chairman and former president of Racing 92, the Paris-based rugby club that is (at the time of writing) sitting at the top of the elite Top 14 league table. Lancaster is – since leaving Leinster last summer – the coach; Farrell, currently on sabbatical from his duties as England captain, will join Racing this summer from Saracens. Lorenzetti took over at underachieving, second-division Racing in 2006 and bought his first Bordeaux château, Lilian Ladouys in Saint-Estèphe, in 2008. In between, he rather cannily sold the real estate business – Foncia, by then the largest in France – at the height of the property boom. It’s fair to say that the proceeds have boosted the fortunes of Racing, of Lilian Ladouys, and of the Bordeaux properties he and wife Françoise have added since: most recently Lafon-Rochet in Saint-Estèphe, d’Issan in Margaux (owned 50/50 with the Cruse family) – and Pédesclaux in 2009. At the time, buying Pédesclaux looked like a
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Fine Wine
