the cellar
Since its creation in 1946, Le Taillevent has housed one of the largest cellars in the world. More than 30,000 bottles are stored in the darkness of its underground cellars, a timeless jewel where time seems to stand still… Among these many bottles, some from another century, sleep peacefully and patiently wait to reach their peak, to be released and reveal their most beautiful dress in the light of day.
André Vrinat, creator of Taillevent and then his son Jean-Claude Vrinat, have always placed wine at the heart of their concerns, offering appellations other than Bordeaux wines which monopolized restaurant menus at the time: an approach for the less iconoclastic. From the beginning of the 1950s, Burgundy was put forward, a region which in this period was struggling to develop. The wines still arrived in Burgundy barrels of 228 liters and were bottled in the cellars of Le Taillevent.
Precursors and visionaries, the Vrinats have enabled the restaurant to still benefit today from rare allocations from iconic estates such as estates Raveneau, Rousseau, Leflaive… The oldest vintage in the cellar is an 1890 Château Ducru-Beaucaillou and to its left a horizontal of the 1918 vintage of the 1st Grands Crus Classés of 1855.
A historic year for the left bank and especially for Château Margaux, which vinified one of its greatest vintages. The Gardinier family itself has a family history and a long-standing link with the world of wine.
The acquisition of Le Taillevent in 2011 is the concretization of this love of wine to always perpetuate this heritage and make it live in its time.