Château Doisy Daëne

The estate

The Doisy of the 1855 list was 1 property already divided among 3 owners, and all 3 parts, Doisy-Daëne, Doisy-Védrines and the one that became Doisy-Dubroca, were classified together. Daëne is for J.J.E. Daëne, who took his portion in the first decade of the 19th century, and a Monsieur Daëne still held the vineyard in 1863. It was always the small one. William Franck, whose Traité sur les vins du Médoc first appeared in 1824, lists Daëne at Barsac for 10 to 12 tonneaux (the old Bordeaux measure of a crop, 900 liters, or 4 barrels) in 1845; Charles Cocks gives 15 in his guide of 1850 and already prints Daëne and Védrine as 2 separate crus; and Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins became the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, have it at 8 tonneaux in 1908 and 8 again in 1922.

Georges Dubourdieu bought it in 1924 with 4 hectares. His son Pierre made a dry white here in the early 1950s, among the first in the region to do so, and in 1968 bought 6 hectares of Doisy-Dubroca to bring the vineyard to its present size. Denis Dubourdieu, professor of oenology at Bordeaux and consultant to a great many estates, took the direction in 2000 and died on July 25, 2016; his sons Jean-Jacques and Fabrice have run the family properties since.

The 18 hectares lie on red sand over the Barsac limestone, at 7,000 vines a hectare, the vines 35 years old on average, planted to Sémillon with Sauvignon Blanc. The grapes are picked by hand in 3 to 6 passes, and the estate holds Haute Valeur Environnementale (High Environmental Value, the French state’s environmental certification for farms) at level 3. Beside the grand vin (the estate’s first wine) come Grand Vin Sec, a dry white of Sauvignon alone, and L’Extravagant de Doisy-Daëne, first made in 1990 and bottled in half bottles only in exceptional years.

At a glance

Appellation

Barsac; the wines may also be sold as Sauternes

Commune

Barsac

Classification

Deuxième Cru Classé 1855

Owners

The Dubourdieu family, since 1924

Direction

Jean-Jacques and Fabrice Dubourdieu, since 2016

Vineyard

18 hectares; 7,000 vines a hectare; vines 35 years old on average

Ground

Red sand over the Barsac limestone

Grapes

Sémillon with Sauvignon Blanc

Farming

Haute Valeur Environnementale, level 3

Cellar

Picked by hand in 3 to 6 passes

Wines

Château Doisy-Daëne; Grand Vin Sec, dry, from Sauvignon alone; L’Extravagant de Doisy-Daëne, from 1990, in half bottles and only in exceptional years

In history

The smallest of the 3 Doisy: 8 tonneaux in 1908 and in 1922

Sources: Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, Château Doisy-Daëne · Vignobles Denis Dubourdieu, the family estates · INAO, cahier des charges Barsac