Thierry Manoncourt
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Thierry Manoncourt (22 September 1917,
Serena Sutcliffe Serena Sutcliffe, Master of Wine, (born 1945), is the head of Sotheby's international wine department, as well as a prominent writer on wine. She is married to fellow Master of Wine David Peppercorn. Joining the wine trade in 1971, she passed the ...

Thierry Manoncourt - Decanter interview
Decanter A decanter is a vessel that is used to hold the decantation of a liquid (such as wine) which may contain sediment. Decanters, which have a varied shape and design, have been traditionally made from glass or crystal. Their volume is usually equ ...
, April 11, 2008
– 27 August 2010) was a French winery owner of the Grand Cru estate
Château Figeac Château-Figeac is a wine estate in the Saint-Émilion appellation of Bordeaux. , it is one of two chateaux to carry the highest rank (Premier Grand Cru Classé A) in the official Classification of Saint-Émilion wine (2022 classification, val ...
in
Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
, and for many decades a major figure of Bordeaux and the
Saint-Émilion Saint-Émilion (; Gascon: ''Sent Milion'') is a commune in the Gironde department in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in southwestern France. In 2016, it had a population of 1,938. In the heart of the country of ''Libournais'' (the area around Libourne), in ...
appellation.Stephen Brook
Thierry Manoncourt dies
Decanter A decanter is a vessel that is used to hold the decantation of a liquid (such as wine) which may contain sediment. Decanters, which have a varied shape and design, have been traditionally made from glass or crystal. Their volume is usually equ ...
, August 29, 2010


Early life

Thierry Manoncourt was the son of Antoine Manoncourt and his wife Ada Elizabeth, born Villepigue. Ada Elizabeth was the daughter of André Villepigue and his wife Henriette, born de Chevremont. Henriette's father (Thierry Manoncourt's great-grandfather) Henri de Chevremont bought Château Figeac in 1892. Manoncourt served in the
French army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed For ...
during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and ended up in
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
as a
prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of wa ...
. He was back in France to participate in the 1943 vintage, which was his first and then enrolled at the
Institut National Agronomique The Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (INA P-G) was a French university-level institution of grande école-type. It offered master's degree in agricultural- and life sciences. It was created in 1971 by merging the ''Institut national agr ...
(INA) in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
where he graduated as an agronomical engineer (''ingénieur agronome''). In December 1946, Manoncourt's mother Ada Elizabeth Manoncourt received the responsibility for Château Figeac. The estate had previously been held by Manoncourt's grandmother Henriette Villepigue, who had died in 1942, after which it had been unclear if Manoncourt's mother or his uncle Robert Villepigue would inherit this family-owned estate. Thierry Manoncourt took over the running of Château Figeac in 1947, at a time when it was very rare for the head of an estate to hold formal agricultural or viticultural training. His background in engineering and science resulted in Figeac being a pioneer or early adopter of many winemaking practices new to Bordeaux.
Jancis Robinson Jancis Mary Robinson OBE, ComMA, MW (born 22 April 1950) is a British wine critic, journalist and wine writer. She currently writes a weekly column for the ''Financial Times'', and writes for her website JancisRobinson.com, updated daily. She ...

Sixty vintages under his belt
March 31, 2007


Winemaking

Manoncourt was thus in charge of the estate when the first
classification of Saint-Émilion wine In 1955, the wines of Saint-Émilion in the wine-growing region of Bordeaux were classified. Unlike the Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855 covering wines from the Médoc and Graves regions, the Saint-Émilion list is updated every 10 y ...
was formally drawn up in 1955. Château Figeac is classified as a Premier Grand Cru Classé (Class B), the second tier in Saint-Émilion below Premier Grand Cru Classé (Class A), which was held at the time by only two estates,
Château Ausone Château Ausone is a Bordeaux wine from Saint-Émilion appellation, previously ranked Premier Grand Cru Classé (A) in the Classification of Saint-Émilion wine but does not hold this rank after the 2022 reclassification. The winery is located ...
, and
Château Cheval Blanc Château Cheval Blanc (French for "White Horse Castle"), is a wine producer in Saint-Émilion in the Bordeaux wine region of France. Its wine received the highest rank of Premier Grand Cru Classé (A) status in the Classification of Saint-Émi ...
. Having Château Figeac being classified on par with these two was a lifelong ambition of Manoncourt, and he was very disappointed that this was not done in the disputed 2006 reclassification, in particular since the wine's price rather than its quality was cited as the reason for keeping it as a Class B. Manoncourt's son-in-law Comte Eric d'Aramon (married to Laure, daughter of Thierry and Marie-France Manoncourt) took over the daily running of Château Figeac in the 1980s, but Manoncourt continued to his death to be active in Figeac's marketing activities and continued to be seen as the estate's front face. Manoncourt was a co-founder of Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux.


Relationship with wine writers

As a well known Bordeaux personality, Manoncourt was the subject of many anecdotes. When
Robert M. Parker, Jr. Robert McDowell Parker Jr. (born July 23, 1947) is a retired U.S. wine critic. His wine ratings on a 100-point scale and his newsletter ''The Wine Advocate'' are influential in American wine buying and are therefore a major factor in setting th ...
toured Bordeaux in 1986 to taste the 1985 vintage from barrel ahead of the ''
en primeur ''En primeur'' or "wine futures", is a method of purchasing wines early while the wine (a vintage) is still in the barrel. This offers the customer the opportunity to invest before the wine is bottled. Payment is made at an early stage, a year o ...
'' campaign, he was accompanied by Jay Miller who had brought along a copy of Parker's recent book on Bordeaux and was collecting signatures in it from estate owners he encountered. Manoncourt received the two at Figeac, and signed the entry in the book. He then read Parker's entry on his estate, and saw that he had written that Château Figeac was of a quality comparable to a Médoc second growth. This annoyed Manoncourt, who crossed this out and instead wrote in "
first growth First Growth (french: Premier Cru) status is a classification of wines primarily from the Bordeaux region of France. The best of the best wines were assigned the highest rank of Premier Cru; only five wines, Château Lafite Rothschild, Châtea ...
" after which he proceeded to tell Parker what he thought he should have written.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Manoncourt, Thierry French winemakers World War II prisoners of war held by Germany French military personnel of World War II 1917 births 2010 deaths