A struggling small-scale vintner in Bordeaux says King Charles has saved her business by tasting her wine.
Noémie Tanneau, 36, a former social worker who started making wine three years ago, has received a torrent of orders since French television showed the king sampling her lussac-saint-émilion during his state visit last week.
“I knew the British love their King, but what I hadn’t realised is how much the French love him,” she told The Times. “I was struggling to pay my bills but all these new customers who’ve come to me have changed everything. And they’re all French.”
Tanneau’s Château Saint-Ferdinand dry red wines are relatively inexpensive, costing €10 to €25 a bottle, but the Bordeaux Wine Council decided they were fit for a king after she won an ethical wine award. “When the council told me they wanted to present one of my wines to the king, at first I thought it was a joke,” she said.
“I was going to offer my Prestige cuvée, but then, as we wanted to show what Bordeaux can do in sustainable winemaking, I chose my Source cuvée, which has no added sulphites.”
Tanneau did not attend the tasting on Friday. “There were reports that I was too busy picking grapes, but I wasn’t invited. If I had been, I would have dropped everything, harvest or no harvest,” she said. “But the important thing is that my wine was there.”
Tanneau’s background is unusual in Bordeaux, where vintners tend to come from long-established winemaking dynasties. Her mother was a nurse and her father was a mechanic.
She took a bank loan to buy her 15-acre vineyard — small by Bordeaux standards — for €1 million in 2020. “I work seven days a week with just two workers. Times are hard now for many winegrowers in Bordeaux, so it’s important to show that a woman can succeed.”
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Tanneau has applied for organic certification for Source. She produces about 3,000 bottles a year and they will soon sell out. Buckingham Palace has not yet placed an order, she said.
