2016 Château Doisy-Daëne Barsac Half Bottle 37.5cl

Product Description

High on the plateau of Barsac, in the heart of Sauternes country, Château Doisy-Daëne has been producing celebrated sweet wines for nearly two centuries. It was once part of a single estate called Doisy, which was divided in the early 19th century. One portion was bought by Jean-Jacques Emmanuel Daëne, a Bordeaux wine merchant, who added his own name to that of the vineyard. Its quality was recognised early: in the famous 1855 Classification, Doisy-Daëne was ranked a Second Growth of Sauternes and Barsac, a status it proudly holds today.

The estate’s modern story is that of one remarkable family. In 1924 it was bought by Georges Dubourdieu, a perfectionist who established its reputation through a string of legendary vintages. His son Pierre, passionate and endlessly inventive, enlarged the vineyard and in the early 1950s created a Grand Vin Sec, among the very first serious dry whites made in the Sauternes region. Pierre’s son Denis Dubourdieu took the helm in 2000. He was one of the most influential figures in modern winemaking, a professor of oenology at the University of Bordeaux and a consultant sought out around the world. Since his untimely death in 2016, his sons Fabrice and Jean-Jacques have carried the family project forward, the fourth generation to do so.

Doisy-Daëne sits at the very summit of Haut-Barsac, surrounded by other 1855 classified growths, on a thin layer of red clay and sand over the porous limestone that makes Barsac’s wines famous for their freshness. Sémillon dominates, with old vines averaging several decades in age, joined by Sauvignon Blanc. Each autumn, as mists rise from the nearby Ciron river, noble rot concentrates the grapes. Pickers pass through the vines several times, harvesting only the perfectly botrytised berries. Each pass and each parcel is fermented separately in barrel, before the wine is aged for around a year in oak.

The result is a quintessential Barsac: radiant and luscious yet poised and vibrant, with candied citrus, apricot, pineapple, honey and acacia lifted by a lively, mineral freshness that keeps every sip light on its feet. Lea & Sandeman have called Doisy-Daëne a Barsac “super-second”, and in the finest years the family also crafts L’Extravagant, a tiny-production cuvée of extraordinary richness that has come to rival the greatest wines of Sauternes. Delicious young yet capable of ageing for decades, Doisy-Daëne remains one of the most refined and consistent sweet wines in Bordeaux.