Château LAGUIOLE corkscrew Versailles Tulipwood

An exceptional French heritage

Château LAGUIOLE® Versailles is a sommelier knife whose handle is cut from woods of the gardens of the Château de Versailles, residence of King Louis XIV. These trees, planted in the 18th century during the garden renovation ordered by Louis XVI, were more than two centuries old when the storm of 26 December 1999 brought them down. Their wood lives on in these handles. The lever bears the fleur-de-lys, emblem of the Kingdom of France. The back of the knife is guilloché, that is, engraved with a decorative pattern, and the forged bee, the house signature, completes the piece. The knife comes with its blue leather sheath, its member card and its box. Four woods are offered: juniper, tulipwood, boxwood and yew. Each handle is cut from a single scale of wood: colour and grain vary from one knife to the next, and none is an exact copy of the photograph. Beneath the handle, the mechanism is that of the Château LAGUIOLE® Classic sommelier knife launched in 1993: one bolster in brushed stainless steel (the bolster is the steel cap at the end of the handle), a single liner (the liner is the steel plate that forms the body of the knife and carries the handle), a guilloché spring, body and lever in 12C27 stainless steel, the curved micro-serrated blade and the five-turn worm. What changes is what you see and what you can tell: a wood from the gardens of Versailles, the fleur-de-lys on the lever, a blue leather sheath instead of black, and the Versailles box. The Grand Cru adds a second, wider bolster for intensive use; the Versailles remains the slimmer one-bolster knife that gives first place to the wood and its story. Château LAGUIOLE® was born in 1993 on the initiative of Guy Vialis, a sommelier who wanted to turn a service tool into an object of art. The house has since worked with Best Sommeliers of the World, including Shinya Tasaki (1995) and Raimonds Tomsons (ASI 2023). After Guy Vialis passed away in 2016, Sébastien Lézier, founder of LIGNE W in 2008, took over the brand at the end of 2017; in 2021 it joined the umbrella brand Maison Château LAGUIOLE. Every knife is made and assembled in our workshop in Thiers, Puy-de-Dôme, the French capital of cutlery. The member card in the box attests that the piece comes from our workshops; its QR code lets you register it online and activates the lifetime warranty.