Climate King Charles wraps up visit in France at organic winery

Florence Cathiard first met the future British royal at a polo match some twenty years ago. Cathiard, a former skiing champion on the French national team, wasn't all that impressed with Prince Charles's skills in the saddle, but she told him how inspired she was by his philosophy of organic farming. She recalls confessing to him that she had all his books, admiring the garden on his Highgrove estate and telling him she adored his Duchy Organic cookies. She told him that she herself is trying organic methods at the Bordeaux vineyard she and her husband recently bought. No longer does she "drug" the vines with pesticides, she said, eliciting Charles' approval.

Now that vineyard, Chateau Smith Au Lafite, is a "biodynamic" enterprise that relies on medicinal plants to protect the vines from disease, uses llamas to weed the fields, considers the lunar calendar when pruning, and has pioneered the conversion of carbon dioxide released during wine fermentation into baking soda.

King Charles and Queen Camilla visit an organic vineyard in Bordeaux, France, on Sept. 22, wrapping up their three-day tour of the country. (Video: AP)

It was here that King Charles III wrapped up his first state visit to France on Friday, a three-day trip during which he seemed in his element, reviving some of his vociferous climate statements that he had hardly made during his first year in power. Charles said he realizes he can't speak out on issues the way he used to - political neutrality is considered integral to the survival of the monarchy in modern times. But in France he demonstrated that he has not left his past personality behind.

During an evening speech at the Palace of Versailles on Wednesday, Charles joked, "I think it was a French king who once said that he would rather be a woodsman than the King of England, dealing with our national complexities. As a dedicated woodsman, I'm happy to report that it's quite possible to combine the two!"

In remarks in the French Senate chamber on Thursday, Charles made climate an even more leading topic. He said: "Our most significant challenge" is "global warming, climate change and the catastrophic destruction of nature." He suggested that Britain and France work together in a resilience alliance, building on the 1904 Entente Cordiale, "to respond more effectively to the global environmental catastrophe in terms of climate and biodiversity."

Charles also met with French business leaders to discuss investments in biodiversity protection.

In public remarks at the event at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, President Emmanuel Macron thanked him for the "clear vision" Charles has long maintained on environmental issues.

In the UK, in a marked contrast, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has just announced a delay in the country's climate targets, saying people may not be willing to bear the cost of replacing their gasoline-powered cars or old water heaters. Auto and energy companies objected to the new uncertainty and joined climate advocates in their outrage.

Charles and Queen Camilla shook up their climate credentials a bit with their decision to travel by plane to France this week, opting out of the more eco-friendly Eurostar train, which goes from London to Paris in just over two hours. They also flew to Bordeaux on Friday, even though France is seeking to limit domestic flights over short distances and shift people to trains.

But environmentalists who were disappointed to see Charles miss out on major events last year, such as the UN climate conference COP27 in November, could be pleased to see him back on the world stage.

Florist Michel Yugo, 58, said it was an "honor" to be Charles' host at the Marché au Fleur, Paris' outdoor flower market, on Thursday.

Yugo is passionate about sustainability, encouraging customers to buy plants like figs because they require less water.

He noted that the French have not always had an easy relationship with monarchies: "We have butchered the heads of our kings." But many vendors proudly showed pasted photos of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to the flower market in 2014. And Charles, according to Yugo, was more than good. "When you're personally involved in fighting climate change and the green movement ... you support anyone who is also fighting climate change," he said.

On Friday, Charles visited environmental projects in and around Bordeaux and navigated the province's electric streetcar network. He met with emergency workers affected by massive wildfires in 2022 and spent time at the Experimental Forest, a project designed to track the response of urban forests to climate change.

His last stop was Chateau Smith Au Lafite, where Cathiard and Camille gave him their tour, including the llamas working in the vineyards.

The Cathiers were unsure why they had been chosen by the British Embassy. Florence has had no contact with Charles since the polo days long gone. The couple speculate that their vineyard was chosen because of its environmental merits. They had heard that competitors in the region were jealous. The Washington Post visited the vineyard and spoke with the owners as they prepared for the royals' arrival. They made about a sixth visit, Katyar said. "I think they came to teach us how to curtsy," she joked.

The vineyard has a fascinating backstory of its own. It dates back to the fourteenth century and a French noble family, although in some cases it has had British owners: the eighteenth-century Scottish merchant George Smith and the twentieth-century heavyweight boxer George Walker, who served time in a London prison, made money in real estate, went bankrupt and ended up owning betting shops in Russia.

Florence and Daniel Cathiard, who met as skiers on the French national team, bought the property from Walker in 1990 and began transforming it from an average château into something that would attract international acclaim.

Like Charles in his early years in the environmental field, the pair were initially derided for experimenting with organic and biodynamic methods, a holistic approach developed in the 1920s by Austrian occultist and social reformer Rudolf Steiner.

Katyar laughs at some of the more extreme ideas of biodynamics. She says that, for example, filling a bubble of deer urine with Achillea flowers and hanging it high in a tree for the entire duration of the summer is "crazy."

At the same time, she admitted to filling a cow's horn with dung and burying it in the ground. And vineyard workers pruning the vines "following the descending moon theory".

The vineyard prides itself on mixing innovation and tradition. That's why solar panels have been installed here. And carbon dioxide capture technology - which the couple's daughter, Alice Katjar Tourbier, presented at the 2015 COP21 conference in Paris.

But there are also horses here, which Florence Katjar says are better than tractors on "more fragile soil" and help cultivate fields with white vines.

During a visit to The Washington Post, Daniel Katyar led the way into a lab that smelled like toast. It's rare for a vineyard to make its own barrels by hand, but there was a carpenter tapping and "toasting" local French oak wood over a fire. British royalty were invited to sample this artisanal process.

They've also been hoisted up to a tower that offers a great view of the property. From there, you don't see the challenges of running a French vineyard in an era of climate change - like powdery mildew, which has reduced yields in many Bordeaux vineyards this year. All you see are rows of vineyards. And apiaries, hedgerows and forests that help preserve biodiversity.

It's a view worthy of the king of the climate.