Gilles de Conti

The Estate

The estate is the named ground of de Conti’s work: Château Tour des Gendres in Ribagnac, France. His role there began in 2021, and the wines tied to his name are framed by Bergerac, its tannins, its limestone, and its ability to produce both structure and lift. In that setting, the work feels rooted and exacting, as though each bottle has to earn its place by balancing firmness with grace. A biographical line from de Conti gives the craft an early direction. "At 21 — I am 35 today — as soon as I had my BTS in viticulture-oenology, I went to meet growers and winemakers of \"character.\"" The sentence has the clean, unsentimental rhythm of someone who learned by going directly to the source: training first, then the road, then the people whose wines had edges worth studying. That appetite for character sits neatly beside a wine like La gloire de mon père, intended to show that Bergerac can have elegant tannins, structure, and finesse. The phrase itself feels carefully weighted, holding strength and restraint in the same frame, and suggesting an appellation that can speak with clarity rather than force.

In the Cellar

The clearest cellar marker is Cantalouette Blanc, the first vintage 100% imagined and vinified by Margaux and Gilles de Conti since their return to the estate in 2021. It is described as an original blend of three grape varieties, a compact fact that carries the imprint of authorship and renewal: a bottle made after the return, and made with deliberate hands. Moulin des dames works from another register. It is a white wine meant to show the terroirs of Bergerac, with limestone giving the wines tension and minerality. The geology here is never merely decorative. Limestone acts like a quiet frame around the fruit, tightening the shape of the wine and drawing a mineral thread through it. Weather also enters de Conti’s voice with unusual bluntness. "I would like weather like that no more, please." The line is spare, but it lands with the force of lived vineyard experience, compressing fatigue, vigilance, and hope into a single sentence.

The Bottlings

La gloire de mon père is the wine tied most directly to a statement about Bergerac’s red-wine architecture: elegant tannins, structure, and finesse. Its purpose is not simply to represent an estate label, but to make a case for what the appellation can express. Moulin des dames is the white wine associated with limestone tension and minerality, a bottling aimed at showing the terroirs of Bergerac. Cantalouette Blanc carries the 2021 return of Margaux and Gilles de Conti into the cellar through a three-grape blend imagined and vinified by them. Les Anciens Francs is also part of the estate work connected to de Conti. Taken together, these releases form a concise map of his materials: Bergerac tannin, limestone, white-wine tension, minerality, and blends shaped after the 2021 return.

Signature

Gilles's signature wines include Cantalouette Blanc and Les Anciens Francs.

In Their Words “I would like weather like that no more, please.” “At 21 — I am 35 today — as soon as I had my BTS in viticulture-oenology, I went to meet growers and winemakers of \"character.\"”