Château Rahoul is an estate in Portets on the left bank of the Bordeaux region. It produces Graves AOC wines. The history of Château Rahoul began in 1646, when Chevalier Guillaume Rahoul was responsible for the construction of the château (a chartreuse), and gave it its name (the label features the Chevalier’s coat of arms, which is still displayed today on the fireplace in the salon.).

After the French Revolution, the estate passed to the Balguerie family who were highly influential negociants and shipowners on the Place de Bordeaux. They extended and renovated the Château and developed the vineyard in order to sell the wines on the Place.

Château Rahoul would not be sold in bottle until the 1970s when the estate was acquired by David Robson, an Englishman with a passion for Bordeaux wines, who completely restructured the vineyard and proved his desire to create premium quality wines at Rahoul. In the early 1980s, the estate became a member of Bordeaux’s Union des Grands Crus. There followed a spell of Australian and Danish (Peter Vinding-Diers between 1977-87) ownership. In 1986 Alain Thiénot (Societé Civile du Château Rahoul) acquired the estate. The management of the Rahoul estate was entrusted to Dourthe in 2007. 

Organic certification: 2017 No (Source: Agence Bio 2017)

Vineyards: 20ha.

Winery: The original selection of ambient yeasts at Rahoul was undertaken by Peter Vinding-Diers (qv) during his eleven vintage spell as winemaker there (1977-87). During my visit on 4th October 1996 to Château Rahoul the grapes were being picked into open baskets to avoid crushing. Alain Thiénot’s press pack stated “yeasts selected from our own vineyards” are responsible for fermentation. However lying around the winery during the 1996 harvest were empty packets of the L-2056 and EC1118 cultured yeast strainss. Coincidentally, EC1118 was developed not far from Thiénot’s Champagne HQ. 

Contact

Château Rahoul

4 route du Courneau, F-33640 Portets (Gironde), France

Tel+33 (0)5.56.67.01.12