Florent Lançon of Domaine de la Solitude is renowned for his excellent Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In his spare time, he collects orchids.
‘It started when I was young – 12 or 13 years old,’ says Lançon. ‘I went to England on holiday. We were visiting a lot of castles and I was so bored! But I did enjoy the Victorian greenhouses.’ It was there that he discovered orchids.
When he returned home, he started buying plants. ‘Soon they were everywhere in the house, but they need humidity and the right light, so I started pestering my parents to construct my own greenhouse.’ After several years, his fascination showed no sign of abating, so his mother and father gave in, and let him build one.
It quickly grew to 18m2, and as he discovered the incredible diversity of the plants, his collection multiplied. Orchids are one of the biggest groups of flowering plants worldwide, with about 28,000 accepted species. He started by focusing on the genera Cattleya and Phalaenopsis (moth orchids), and now collects Paphiopedilum species (slipper orchids).
There are many features of orchids that attracted him: ‘Their arboreal lifestyle, their incredible diversity of shapes and colours, their rarity, the challenge of cultivating and propagating them, as well as the mysteries surrounding the origins of certain species – all of it captivated me… I quickly realised that orchids, fascinating inhabitants of the jungle, represent the pinnacle of evolution in the plant kingdom.’
Nurturing nature
When he turned 18, Lançon travelled to French Guyana to explore orchids in their natural habitat. He stayed with a local insect collector, trapping moths and butterflies by night and exploring plants among the trees by day.
At school, he specialised in science, and went on to study ecology at university. He wanted to become ‘a Paul Watson of the forests’, he says, inspired by the Canadian-American who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
But when his grandfather died in 2005, there was no one to take over the family estate – so Lançon stepped in. ‘My passion for tropical plants transferred to vines,’ he says, and he instantly felt at home in the vineyards. ‘I feel good growing things,’ he says. ‘It’s an instinct – I can tell if they’re suffering.’ He still feels more at home in the fields than in the cellar.
But there’s a crucial difference between cultivating tropical plants and vines. He wants his orchids to be as healthy and happy as possible. But with vines, ‘they need to grow – but not too much’, he says. Vines need to suffer a little to give their best fruit, and he admits that ‘it’s difficult for me not to nurture them too much’. Focusing on soil health, and growing trees around the vineyard, has helped.
Handing it down
As the demands of work and parenting intensify, not all of us are able to maintain our outside interests. But despite managing his 37ha estate, Lançon still finds time for his hobby – he now has about 200 different species. He has even displayed his collection in Avignon’s Palais des Papes, and continues to visit flower markets all over the world: Taiwan, Singapore, Borneo, Costa Rica…
He has passed on his love of the natural world to his nine-year-old son Gustave and they’re planning to visit Sumatra in Indonesia together later this year. ‘He can watch the orangutans; I can look at the orchids!’ says Lançon.
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