Our Winemaker

Precision, Legacy & Intuition

A legendary Bordeaux winemaker

Thierry Garnaud has shaped some of Bordeaux’s most celebrated wines over the past decades.

During his long tenure at Château Cheval Blanc, he was responsible for a series of iconic vintages, including multiple 100-point wines, widely regarded as benchmarks of their era.

His reputation is built on precision, restraint and an extraordinary ability to translate terroir into wine.

From Cheval Blanc to Canon Chaigneau

At Château Canon Chaigneau, Thierry Garnaud brings the same discipline and sensitivity that defined his work at Cheval Blanc.

His philosophy: letting the vines do the talking

His methods are clearly his own; but the premise is one of letting the vines and the grapes do the talking, with minimal intervention, and according to traditional methods.

Core to his beliefs is that wines should not be too heavy, concentrated or extracted, and avoiding many modern practises which can lead to over alcoholic, ‘heady’ wines.

We aim for wines that are delicious, drinkable & complex;
representative of both terroir and vintage, they are singular, original & unmistakeable.

The result is medium-bodied wines that are incredibly drinkable, perfectly ripe, and that highlight the intricate beauty of our terroir.
This is a painstaking & labour intensive process, involving pumping the wine in and out of our cuves, to ensure a gentle and complete extraction. 

We specialise in blending tradition with modernity: from impeccably run vineyards, to top quality concrete vats. Produced traditionally according to 'La lutte raisonnée' (literally 'the reasoned struggle') - using less chemicals than conventional growers.We are 90% Merlot, 5% Cabernet & 5% Pressac (More commonly known as Malbec, outside of Bordeaux) with a good and regular harvest of ~120,000 bottles per year. We vinify in a traditionally equipped, excellent quality cement cuverie, then age in cement cuves and old oak barrels.From the 2019 vintage onwards, the wine will be in 30% new French Oak.

Precision in tradition: cement cuves and vinification

We vinify in traditionally equipped, excellent quality cement cuves.
These differ in size, corresponding to the parcels they represent - from our smallest at 44 hectolitres (1 hectolitre = 100 litres = 133 bottles) all the way up to 150 hectolitres.

Vinification generally takes place over a 15 to 18 day period, with three ‘remontages’ per day: gently pumping the wine from one concrete tank to another. This careful technique optimises the wine's contact with the grape skins, ensuring it doesn't become too jammy or overly extracted.

Curating excellence: barrel selection and aging

Post vinification, we select around 35% to be aged in new, one or two year old 500 litre French oak barrels, from master Tonneliers, Sylvain, Demptos & Taransaud.

We taste through all the different barrels, regularly assessing their progress.

Crafting the perfect blend: assemblage and bottling

We then perform trial ‘assemblages’ - the process of blending the different lots to create the best possible version of our sensational terroir.

After around 20 months of ageing, the wines are gently bottled. Ready to be labelled and capsuled on demand, so they arrive in perfect condition to your door...

A signature now shared in Singapore

While vinification and élevage remain firmly anchored in Bordeaux, our presence in Singapore allows Thierry Garnaud’s work to be discovered more closely by wine lovers in the region.

The same wines, crafted with the same standards and integrity, are now available locally, bringing a legendary Bordeaux savoir-faire closer to Singapore’s vibrant wine and dining culture.