Château de Respide

The château

A register of 1630 already mentions the woods and vines of Respide. The land was once called Larnie, short for La Reynie, after M. de La Reynie, lieutenant of police under Louis XIV, and before the Revolution it belonged to his descendants, the comtes de Chanac. Later owners included Mme de Saint Aubin, wife of a prefect of Bordeaux, and the Rodiès family, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made long stays here. Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, list the Château de Respide at Langon from 1874, under Mme L. Boche, née de Château, then under Pascal, a former prefect, and from 1893 under Gabriel Rodiès, an engineer. In 1908 Édouard Féret’s volume on the Sauternes region described 125 hectares of woods, meadows and vines, a château above the valleys of the Grusson and the Garonne, white vines on the slopes of Saint-Pierre-de-Mons, four fifths Sémillon and one fifth Sauvignon, and red vines on the sandy plateau, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Pineau in about equal parts; the wine had taken a silver medal at the Bordeaux exhibition of 1895.

The estate lies entirely in the Graves, on gravel hills over clay close to Sauternes, in 3 zones. To the southwest, Boyrein, 25 hectares at 80 meters, has Garonne gravel over clay on its plateau, almost all Merlot, and limestone lower down, where the Sauvignon Blanc for the white Callipyge grows. To the north, Paparon, 18 hectares on the right bank of the Grusson, has sandy loam over clay and gravel, with red and white grapes. To the southeast, Cueille, 35 hectares in a single block, has old alluvium over clay and gravel, mostly Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, and gives the red Callipyge. The vines are 30 years old on average and grassed between the rows.

Woods, hedges, nesting boxes and beehives have been kept since the 1980s; the estate has held Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) since 2017 and the Bordeaux Cultivons Demain label since 2022, and the cellar works with a light hand and few inputs, led by Christophe with Amélie. The red Château de Respide, of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec, macerates 3 weeks after a cold soak and ages 6 months in cask; the white, of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon, ferments at 16°C and rests on its fine lees in steel. The red Callipyge, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot from vines over 40 years old, spends 4 weeks in vat and 12 months in oak, 30% new.

At a glance

Appellation

Graves

Commune

Roaillan

Classification

No classification

Direction

Christophe, in the cellar, with Amélie

Vineyard

3 zones of 25, 18 and 35 hectares; vines 30 years old on average

Soil

Garonne gravel, limestone, sandy loam and old alluvium over clay Terroir of Graves →

Grapes

Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale since 2017; Bordeaux Cultivons Demain since 2022

Cellar

Red: 6 months in cask; Callipyge red: 12 months in oak, 30% new

Wines

Château de Respide, red and white; Callipyge, red and white; Le Drop de Respide; L’effervescent

In history

Under Gabriel Rodiès from 1893; 125 hectares of woods, meadows and vines in 1908