Our Commitments
Ethical exemplarity is not a destination, but our daily compass: it guides each of our steps toward responsible performance, where human fulfilment and environmental respect naturally harmonize.
Our Engagé R.S.E. label
La Maison Cardinale became, in 2021, the first classified growth of Bordeaux to obtain the Engagé R.S.E. label (Corporate Social Responsibility), awarded by AFNOR, at the “Confirmed” level. This certification was renewed in 2024.
This label is not declarative. It is awarded after an independent audit of actual practices, based on four pillars: the demand for quality, respect for women and men, environmental protection and the sharing of know-how.
This is the concrete translation of a conviction held since our beginnings: that the quality of wine and the quality of hospitality cannot be dissociated from the way we care for people and the land.
The demand for quality
Demanding standards are our cardinal principle. They begin in the vineyard, with precision viticulture adapted to each plot, and continue in the cellar: entirely manual harvests, successive sorting through to density sorting, gravity-fed vatting. Our experimental cellar allows us to innovate methodically, without ever compromising the style of our wines.
This same demand guides the welcome we provide to our visitors and our clients. Each experience is designed, tested and improved with the same care we devote to our cuvées.
Our satisfaction lies in the fact that our wines and our experiences faithfully reflect who we are.
Respect for women and men
La Maison Cardinale is a team of 18 people working every day in the vineyard, the cellars and visitor hospitality. Ensuring their safety, their well-being and their working conditions is not a compliance obligation, it is a condition of quality.
We are committed to equal treatment in recruitment and to developing the skills of each member of the team. Training, transmitting, valuing: these are the same gestures as those we apply to our wines. The cohesion you feel when you come to visit us is the result of these daily choices.
Environmental protection
The vineyard is our primary material. Taking care of it means taking care of what we produce. Our approach is long-standing and certified: member since 2013 of the first Environmental Management System for Bordeaux Wines certified ISO 14001. High Environmental Value since 2017.
Our technical itinerary is conducted as close as possible to organic farming practices, out of conviction rather than in search of certification. Thanks to risk-modelling tools and the responsiveness of our team, we effectively protect the vineyard and the women and men who work there, without renouncing our philosophy.
The site forms a haven of biodiversity that we are committed to preserving and fostering. A 40-hectare forest, several ponds and streams constitute reservoirs of coolness. A permanent natural fallow area, sheltered from any human intervention, serves as an ecological reservoir. The 800 metres of hedgerows planted since 2019 break cold air currents and serve as corridors for a varied fauna, from arthropods to bats, which delight in the vineyard’s pest insects.
Our action for pollinating insects
Since 2022, La Maison Cardinale has held the European BEE FRIENDLY label, created by beekeepers, in recognition of its concrete commitment to pollinators. This label covers all the cuvées from the 2022, 2023 and 2024 vintages.
The property also has its own hives, and Caroline Decoster takes care of them herself. The estate has established a partnership with the beekeeper Apinae, who has an atypical vision of his profession: rather than installing classic square hives, he has designed horizontal hives that are unique in France. Made in Corrèze from untreated French wood, they reproduce the natural and age-old habitat of bees, thereby protecting them from diseases and polluting materials.
Sharing our know-how
Opening the estate to the public in 2021 was a deliberate choice: that of sharing what we know how to do with those who wish to immerse themselves in the winegrowing world. Guided tours of the cellars, masterclasses, lunch formulas, immersive seminars in the Saint-Émilion vineyard: each experience is a way of transmitting.
This demand has been recognised. Our family tour La Familiale featured in the Top 100 of the Trophées de l’Œnotourisme 2022. In 2026, the Great Wine Capitals Network awarded us two distinctions: the Best of Wine Tourism Gold, Discovery and Innovation category, for La Mélodique, our multisensory experience combining wine and music, and the Global Best of Wine Tourism for France, which rewards our entire wine tourism offer.
This sharing extends beyond the walls of the estate. We actively contribute to the economic and community life of the Saint-Émilion area, by supporting local initiatives and maintaining long-term relationships with the region’s stakeholders.