Château Dauphiné-Rondillon

The château

White wine has been made here since 1798, when the Débat family first made it at Loupiac, and Basile Débat won the estate’s first medal, for the 1900, at the Concours Général Agricole of Paris in 1901. In 1927 Jean Darriet, the owner by then, began selling the wine in bottle, much of it to private buyers in France, and in 1935 the 1931 sold at the same price as Petrus 1931. Guy Darriet, a chemical engineer and a commander in the French Navy, cut back fertilizers and nitrogen from 1950, and in 1952 the wine entered the cellar of the Élysée. Jean-Christophe Darriet, a mechanical engineer, has run the vineyard since 1998 with his sister Sandrine, and Philippe Darriet, a professor and researcher in enology at Bordeaux who studies Sauvignon Blanc and the grapes of sweet wines, has advised the family since 2000. In 2009 the wine turned up in the Japanese manga Les Gouttes de Dieu.

Rondillon was a place before it was a single estate. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, print it as a place of Loupiac shared among several owners. Its leading holding heads their list of the principal proprietors of Loupiac from 1868, under de Marcellus, at 25 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) of white, then under the comtes de Montbron, as Rondillon-Haut-Loupiac from 1893, while other parts of Rondillon stood under Lannes, Jaubert and Fournier, the deputy mayor.

The château stands on the heights of Loupiac, on soils mostly of clay and limestone topped with gravel, with 9 hectares of vines 45 years old on average. Château Dauphiné-Rondillon is 70% Sémillon and 30% Sauvignon Blanc, aged about 12 months in vat and kept at least 1 year in the cellar before it is sold. The Cuvée d’Or, from the family’s oldest vines, is 80% Sémillon and 20% Sauvignon Blanc, picked by hand in up to 5 passes, fermented in French oak until it stops of itself and aged 12 months in barrel. The Cuvée d’Exception is 100% Sémillon from vines 100 years old, pressed on a wooden cage press of 1903 and aged 18 months in barrel. The estate has held Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3 since 2017, and the family’s 6 châteaux also include Château de Rouquette at Loupiac, the Clos du Château de Cadillac, Château des Gravières, Château Les Tourelles and Château Moutin, a Graves.

At a glance

Appellation

Loupiac

Commune

Loupiac, on the heights

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Darriet family, Vignobles J Darriet

Direction

Jean-Christophe Darriet, since 1998, with Sandrine Darriet

Consultant

Philippe Darriet, since 2000

Vineyard

9 hectares; vines 45 years old on average

Soil

Mostly clay and limestone, gravel on top Terroir of Loupiac →

Grapes

Sémillon 70%, Sauvignon Blanc 30%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, since 2017

Cellar

About 12 months in vat; at least 1 year in the cellar before sale

Wines

Château Dauphiné-Rondillon; Cuvée d’Or; Cuvée d’Exception, 100% Sémillon

The house

Also Château de Rouquette, Loupiac; Clos du Château de Cadillac; Château des Gravières; Château Les Tourelles; Château Moutin, Graves

In history

Rondillon-Haut-Loupiac, of the comtes de Montbron, from 1893