“If Latour had not fallen so low, the British would never have had the chance to buy it.”

This was the typically down-to-earth observation of Jean-Paul Gardère, the man of the soil who managed and restored the Bordeaux first-growth chateau. His chance came in 1963 when the UK’s Pearson, along with Harveys of Bristol, was allowed – by Charles de Gaulle himself – to acquire the business from a dispersed and disaffected de Beaumont family.

Harry Waugh, Harveys’ fine wine man, already knew and respected Gardère, who died last week aged 93. Unlike the old ma?tre de chai, or cellar master, who was based in Bordeaux and ventured out to the estate in Pauillac only once a week, Gardère was a Médocain who lived and worked in the world’s most concentrated stretch of fine wine vineyards northwest of the city.