Zanzibar

Situated in the pristine waters of the Indian Ocean off the African shore, Zanzibar evokes faraway journeys to exotic places and the sweet pleasures of life. The most beautiful homes on the archipelago feature magnificent sculpted wooden doors of great symbolic significance. According to tradition, when a new house was built, the door was the first part of the construction to be erected, and the flowers, fruits, animals and objects carved thereupon were inspired by the people living or the activity to take place within.

The Indians who immigrated to Zanzibar in the eighteenth century for the spice trade brought with them two types of doors: the Gujarati door and the Punjabi door. The Punjabi door has an arched shape and panels studded with copper nails that, while prized today as decorative elements, once served to protect homes from elephant stampedes!

Today, a majestic Punjabi door, a grandiose symbol for the edifice that houses the precious nectars of the estate, marks the entrance to the Pagodas of Cos d’Estournel. This souvenir of commercial ties with India is a consummate choice for the estate, whose other symbol is the elephant. The door has a singular history: after being given to a wine negociant by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1838, it was acquired at auction by the descendants of Louis-Gaspard d’Estournel before being installed beneath the Pagodas in the middle of the twentieth century, where it will remain throughout the ages, a guardian of the estate’s past and its future.