Château Smith Haut Lafitte

This guide to Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte outside Bordeaux opens with Georges Smith, the Scottish merchant who bought this gravel plateau in 1720 and left the barrel-making to Bordeaux's coopers and negociants, as was custom here for two and a half centuries. It follows Daniel and Florence Cathiard, former Olympic skiers with no wine background, who bought the estate in 1990 and in 1995 did something almost no other Bordeaux chateau dared: build their own cooperage on the property. Watch the coopers split the staves by hand rather than sawing them, the old way.