Château Doisy-Védrines

The origin is a farm called Doisic, which Jean Raymond took over in 1677 and whose name in time came to be written Doisy. The Védrines family entered the property in 1704, by marriage.

What came next explains why there are three châteaux today sharing a first name. In the first half of the nineteenth century the estate was split in three — Doisy-Daëne, Doisy-Dubroca and Doisy-Védrines — under the Napoleonic inheritance laws, which required an estate to be divided among all the children rather than passed whole to the eldest.

In 1851 Doisy-Védrines was sold to the Boireaus, forebears of the Castéja family. Four years later came the 1855 classification, and all three parts of the original estate entered together as Deuxième Cru Classé.

It sits in Barsac, one of the five communes entitled to the Sauternes appellation. Twenty-five hectares on gravel and limestone, with vines averaging thirty-five years.

Botrytis here depends on a small river, the Ciron: its cold water raises mist in the morning over the warmer Garonne, and sunny afternoons burn that damp away. It is the swing between the two that concentrates the fruit without rotting it.