Château Dauzac
A Cru Classé synonymous with ”Grand Vin” but also history, innovation and eco-responsibility!
Château Dauzac is a wine estate located in AOC Margaux and ranked 5th Grand Cru Classé in 1855. The name Dauzac appears for the first time on these lands in the 12th century when Richard Coeur de Lion, son of Aliénor d’Aquitaine, duchess d’Aquitaine, granted land to Chevalier Pétrus d’Auzac. This famous king used to reward the acts of bravery during battles by the awarding them land.
At the time this first plot was located between Macau and the Château. As was usual at the time the property was conducted in polyculture thus combining different agricultures and also livestock. This knight settled here and planted the first vines. Château Dauzac was until recently the property of MAIF. It was recently sold to Mr. Christian Roulleau, Breton entrepreneur at the head of the group SAMSIC. The property covers 120 hectares in one piece of which 49 hectares are planted with vines. Let’s go together to meet Mr. Laurent Fortin, general manager of this vineyard, for whom Dauzac is more than just a ”post”, but a real passion!
What is the signature of Dauzac wines? What makes it possible to recognize them in blind tasting?
Laurent Fortin : They offer a certain power while having elegant and round tannins. Compared to other Margaux it seems to me that we are a little more powerful and a little more ”full”. Generally one ages a little less quickly in terms of tannins and fruit. Our wines are a lot about fruit and youth. We also always have a nice freshness on the finish and a nice length in the mouth.
You work a lot on the environmental impact of the property and its production. Can you tell us about it?
L.F.: This eco-responsible approach is not new to us and affects all facets of the property. What I mean is that we apply it as much to the vineyard, to the cellar, to the gardens, to the meadows, as to the buildings. We were, for example, the first with Gruaud-Larose to put in place in 1999 reproductive confusion. From there it allowed us to reduce and then totally eliminate anti-botrytis and other inputs. It allowed us to redo the soil, to revitalize the fauna and flora and in the end this qualitative increase in the life of our terroirs is felt in the wine! By no longer killing the natural ”wildlife” of the vine you allow the natural predators of different insects to come back, such as spiders. We also produce our own manure made from cattle of a neighbor breeder who come to graze on our meadows. It is energized and we spray it on our ground. The soil functions as a digestive tract, if you bring nutrients to degrade the earthworms will reappear and do their job. In the end thanks to all this we have very lively and very rich soils! We have also replanted hedges that are used to nest animals. They are also extremely useful because they attract the pests of the vine. So instead of having insects that will ravage our vines (and our grapes) and thus force us to use products that are going to be harmful, these rodents naturally go into hedges. They become real places of life!
We do not weed, either. If you look at our rows of vines, they are green! This natural plant cover is composed of herbs, flowers etc… which attracts bees, insects and therefore birds (which are natural predators). When the grass is too much competition in the vineyard then we mechanically work the soil. But not deep so as not to kill the ecosystem. However, from the month of July we do not plow the soil, we cut the grass. The idea is to let this plant tissue develop so that it degrades the winter and therefore promotes the life of our soil.
I think that one of the beautiful proofs, in addition to the richness of our soils, of the good health of our vineyard is that the lake which is in the middle of the property and which thus recovers all the rainwater has seen the crawfish return more than a decade ago. Since then each year we have them! We also set up hives in the meadow to produce honey. We have a good health of our hives (little mortality, good production, no bees that ”escape”) which also allows us to evaluate the level of health of our vineyard. This process is to find the right balance between letting nature go and guiding it at times. Excess, whatever the meaning (too interventionist or not at all) is bad. In a property such as Dauzac, which is 120 hectares in one piece - a very large property - we must have in mind all future generation, we can not harm anything! Terroir is our passion but also our ‘livelihood’.
So what do you use to protect your vineyard and where does it come from?
L.F.: We only have 49 hectares (out of 120) planted with vines. The rest is from the biodiversity zone. Philippe Roux, who is our technical director, plants aromatic plants / plants that will be used to make herbal teas that will be used to protect the vineyard. The big problem is that we work according to biodynamics. If we want to push the logic further, working biodynamically but bringing plants from South America or Asia, not necessarily grown in organically, would ultimately be quite contradictory. Sowe made the choice to grow everything here. It is important to maintain a consistency of terroir… By growing here the aromatic plants take the local energy… And that makes it! We found that the plants that grew here often work much better. So there is a reaction that we do not explain but that is real. Currently we are also renovating the old bakery of the château to turn it into ‘teahouse’ to dry our plants.
We also work with algae produced on the Arcachon Basin, once dried and crushed they are very useful against mildew.
Do you have a particular story about Dauzac?
Château Dauzac has innovation in its DNA, for example it is here that the Bordeaux mixture was invented as was thermoregulation. When the Bernat family owned Dauzac it was confronted in the last years with a very hot vintage. In order to protect the vats they filled jute sacks with ice blocks to arrange them around the vats to cool them. Today we continue to innovate as examples with our tanks with double transparent walls which facilitate much our work in the cellar and we do not do traditional pigeage or load shedding but we work with gas in the tank which will prevent the solidification of the cap while allowing extraction. To summarize, I would say that we are working with the Kaizen in the spirit of doing the same job while continually improving it. We are constantly striving to make our work more efficient, to improve it and ultimately improve our quality.