Château de Cérons

The château

The house is a chartreuse built at the end of the 17th century, listed as a historic monument since 2008, looking over the 12th-century church and the Garonne. In the 18th century it belonged to the family of the Marquis de Calvimont, still there in 1850, when Charles Cocks, the Englishman whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins became, with Édouard Féret, the guide of the Bordeaux trade, listed a Château de Cérons among the white wines under the de Calvimonts. From 1883 the guide printed a Château de Cérons et Larouquey among the crus bourgeois and first artisans of Cérons, with 25 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) of white, under owners who kept changing; by 1922 the Larouquey had gone, and E. Saint-Jean made 18 tonneaux of red and 25 of white. The family of the architect Roger-Henri Expert, who died at Cérons in 1955, owned it later. Suzanne and Jean Perromat bought it in 1958. Their son Xavier joined in 1980 and took over the management in 2012, and he runs it today with Caroline Perromat, who spent 15 years at Château Haut-Bailly; Julien Belle, of Oenoteam, is the consulting enologist.

The estate has 30 hectares, 27 of them vines, on a plateau of gravel over marine limestone with fossil starfish, and the microclimate of the Ciron favors noble rot. The vines are planted at 6,500 a hectare, with cover crops between the rows, and the estate has been certified Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms), level 3, and ISO 14001 since July 2019. The white Graves is 50% Sémillon, 40% Sauvignon Blanc and 10% Sauvignon Gris, the red 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Merlot. The cellar, built in 1966, works by gravity. The sweet Cérons is picked in successive passes, fermented in barrel and aged there 2 to 3 years, and the range adds Château Calvimont, La Quille and a Crémant de Bordeaux.

At a glance

Appellation

Cérons, sweet; Graves, red and white

Commune

Cérons

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Perromat family, since 1958

Direction

Xavier and Caroline Perromat

Consultants

Julien Belle, Oenoteam

Vineyard

27 hectares of vines on an estate of 30; 6,500 vines a hectare

Soil

Gravel over marine limestone with fossil starfish Terroir of Cérons →

Grapes

White Graves: Sémillon 50%, Sauvignon Blanc 40%, Sauvignon Gris 10%; red Graves: Cabernet Sauvignon 55%, Merlot 45%

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3, and ISO 14001, since 2019

Cellar

Gravity cellar of 1966; the Cérons 2 to 3 years in barrel

Wines

Château de Cérons, Cérons and red and white Graves; Château Calvimont; La Quille; Crémant de Bordeaux

The house

A chartreuse of the late 17th century, listed as a historic monument in 2008

Not to be confused with

Grand Enclos du Château de Cérons