Château de La Dauphine

The château

The name recalls a stay by Marie-Josèphe de Saxe, Dauphine of France and mother of Louis XVI, and the estate once belonged to the duc de Richelieu, lord of Fronsac. Charles Cocks, whose Bordeaux, ses environs et ses vins of 1850 began the guide later known as Cocks and Féret, lists La Dauphine among the côtes of Fronsac under Gaspard, at 55 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels); Joseph Chaperon held it from 1868 and Edmond Morange from 1893. Édouard Féret, the Bordeaux publisher, gave it a notice in his Les vins de l’arrondissement de Libourne of 1897: one of the finest sites of the district, with a vineyard on the slope, in sandy clay, giving wines of great finesse and much sap. In 1922 Georges de Brem held it, at 70 tonneaux, with La Grave joined to it; the de Brem family had held the château in the 18th century, and it passed from mother to daughter for more than 200 years.

Since 2015 La Dauphine has belonged to the family of Jean-Claude Labrune, founder of Cegedim, a technology and services company, and they have enlarged it: the Haut Ballet vineyard in 2016, Château Vrai Canon Bouché, 13 hectares of Canon-Fronsac, in 2021, and in 2023 control of Château Canon Pécresse, 4.1 hectares, in partnership with the Pécresse family. The vines grow on clay and limestone, the Fronsac molasses and limestone with fossil starfish, and the whole vineyard is farmed organically and biodynamically, 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc. The grapes are sorted by machine and by hand and move by gravity through a circular vat room; the wine then ages 1 year in 225-liter barrels, 20-hectoliter foudres and amphorae of clay and stoneware. Julien Schaus is the enologist, and there is also a Delphis de La Dauphine, in white and rosé.

At a glance

Appellation

Fronsac

Commune

Fronsac

Classification

No classification

Owners

The Labrune family, since 2015

Enologist

Julien Schaus

Soil

Clay and limestone, Fronsac molasses, limestone with fossil starfish Terroir of Fronsac →

Grapes

Merlot 80%, Cabernet Franc 20%

Farming

Organic and biodynamic, the whole vineyard

Cellar

Gravity; circular vat room; 1 year in 225-liter barrels, 20-hectoliter foudres and amphorae

Wines

Château de La Dauphine; Delphis de La Dauphine, white and rosé

The house

Also Château Vrai Canon Bouché and Château Canon Pécresse, Canon-Fronsac

In history

Once the duc de Richelieu’s; 55 tonneaux in 1850, 70 in 1922