Château Dauzac is an estate in the commune of Labarde on the Bordeaux region’s left bank. Red wines are made under the Margaux AOC.
Owner: Christian Roulleau from late 2018. Previous owners: Felix Chatellier 1978-1988. MAIF (insurance company) and André Lurton 2014-2018.
Classification: 1855 Classification: 5th growth.
History: Dauzac takes its name from Pétrus d’Auzac who was granted title to the estate by Richard Comte de Poitiers, later Richard the Lionheart, King of England, Count of Poitiers, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Maine and Count of Anjou via a deed which is preserved in the Tower of London. Wine-growing can be traced to the 13th century, one of the earliest in the Médoc, under the Abbaye de Ste Croix, also owners of Château Carbonnieux, which had established a ‘sauveté’, a farmable area used for charitable purposes on this site.
1545 The Benedictine monks of the Sainte-Croix de Bordeaux Abbey were the first to mention, in their records as early as 1545, the “Bourdieu” de Dauzac estate, “Bourdieu” then referring to a farmhouse with a vineyard. Until the end of the Ancien Régime, the owners of Dauzac, which became an elegant Château, were wine merchants or eminent members of the Bordeaux Parliament.
1685 The Bordeaux wine merchant Pierre Drouillard, Treasurer of France, made Château Dauzac one of the finest vineyards in the Médoc. His grandson, Jean-Baptiste Lynch, appointed Mayor of Bordeaux by Napoleon and then a Peer of France under Louis XVIII, carried it through several regimes, as it maintained its leading position. For two decades, the Wiebroocks definitively established Château Dauzac among the aristocracy of Médoc wines and secured recognition of the estate in the 1855 classification.
After 1740 Dauzac was expanded to 40ha by the Lynch family (Jean-Baptiste Lynch) from 1783 and the current chateau building was constructed. In 1855 Château Dauzac was classified as a fifth growth. At the time it was owned by M. Wiebrock. In 1863 Château Dauzac passed to Nathaniel Johnston, then owner of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou. He gave the wine its first yellow label. In 1884 Under Nathaniel Johnston development began of the first Bordeaux Mixture treatments here against downy mildew in collaboration with the Bordeaux Faculty of Science.
Mr Bernat, the owner of Glacières Bernat, acquired Château Dauzac in 1939. In order to regulate the temperature of vats, he came up with the idea of putting blocks of ice in them during fermentation, thus paving the way for thermoregulation. In 1965 Dauzac was acquired by William Alain Miailhe, then also owner of Château Siran. In 1978 it was sold to Chatellier family of Champagne Abel Lepitre and Champagne Georges Goulet. Foundations of the original chateau, pulled down at the end of the 17th century, were revealed when a new cellar was constructed.
After periods of ownership by the Miailhes and Chatelliers, MAIF, a French insurance company, took over the Château in 1989. It became its sole owner. In 1992 MAIF entrusted the Château’s management to Vignobles André Lurton through an operating company. In 2004 anew gravity-flow cellar is built. In 2007 Christine Lurton, Jacques Lurton’s sister, became President of Chateau Dauzac when her father André had to retire (by French law) as he had reached 80 years of age. Christine’s husband worked for Jacques’ father André as head of sales in the French market. He retired in 2010.
In March 2013, Laurent Fortin, appointed Managing Director, changed the property’s economic model and returned its wines to the Place de Bordeaux. | In 2014 Laurent Fortin and his Technical Director, Philippe Roux, sensed that it was possible to have better knowledge of grapes during fermentation. With the support of the Seguin Moreau cooperage, the first wooden vats with transparent double staves were developed. In 2016 acquisition of know-how for the selection and multiplication of indigenous yeasts from the Château Dauzac vineyards.
In 2017 Dauzac planted a plot of un-grafted (no rootstock) vines of Cabernet Sauvignon from massal selections of the property’s best vines, with the aim of recreating the original flavour of this emblematic Médoc varietal. Château Dauzac continued to innovate by producing a vegan wine (D de Dauzac). In late 2020 Christian Roulleau purchases Château Dauzac.
Vineyards: After a post-War decline, Siran was re-expanded in the early 1970s by the then owners, the Miailhe family. Gravel on iron pan.
Red wines
Margaux AOC, La Bastide de Dauzac: Second wine.
Margaux AOC, Château Dauzac
Contact
Château Dauzac, F-33460 Labarde (Gironde), France
Tel+33 (0)5.57.88.32.10