Chãteau Doyac

Château Doyac, located in the town of Saint-Seurin-de-Cadourne, is the property of Max de Pourtalès and the place of his conversion. Indeed, before becoming a winegrower, he worked on the financial markets in Germany and then in France while his wife did theater in New York. Three months after their marriage, they come to Bordeaux where Max begins to study viticulture and oenology. After having cut his teeth at the Château de Malleret, in 1998 he bought this château and its 34 hectares almost in one piece.
Since then, he has renovated and modernized the premises to optimize wine production. When his daughter, Clémence, an ISVV oenologist, joined them in 2016, they converted the vineyard to organic farming then to biodynamics in 2017. The wines have been certified organic since the 2018 vintage, Demeter since the 2019 vintage and Biodyvin since the 2022 vintage.

Max de Pourtalès came back to his Bordeaux origins by acquiring in 1998 the château Doyac located in the Haut-Médoc appellation in Saint Seurin de Cadourne. His wife, Astrid, gave up her life in New York on the theatre scene to be on his sides in this new adventure. They both fell in love with this vineyard the origins of which date back to 1850 as related in the Féret Book ``Bordeaux et ses vins``.

The vines as well as the cellars have been greatly renovated. Since the enlargement of the vineyard in 2009, Max de Pourtalès built a new storing cellar and a new barrel cellar aiming at optimizing the wine making. Moreover Max de Pourtalès can now receive journalists as well as tourists fond of wine and pizzas in in his new tasting room with a professional pizza oven. Everything is there to enable this vineyard to express itself in the best way possible.

My philosophy, says Max de Pourtalès, is not to make overly extracted wines as the whole world knows to do but on the contrary to make fine and elegant wines. The wine still has substance , but most of all one should respect balance and freshness, which characterizes the great wines of Bordeaux «. Surrounded by their team and well-advised by the oenologists Eric Boissenot and Marco Balsimelli, Max and Astrid de Pourtalès are looking every year for the blending that will respect the most the vintage and reveal the identity of the wine of château Doyac.

Château Doyac is vinified in a classic way on the advice of the well known oenologist Eric Boissenot and his partner Marco Balsimelli. The winemaking is carried out in thermo-regulated stainless steel tanks. Attention is mainly paid to controlling temperatures and gently extracting phenolic compounds, in order to favor the finesse of the tannins.

The concentration is natural due to the limited yields. Alcoholic fermentation is carried out by indigenous yeasts which come directly from the vine. Grapes collected before harvest are pressed and the must obtained will spontaneously ferment. Indeed, in biodynamics, very few inputs are tolerated in the wine, only the sulfur correction being allowed during vinification.

Aging takes place in barrels for 12 months, of which 20% are new barrels each year. As the sandstone and terracotta amphorae test has proven to be very qualitative, the pool of amphorae will expand in the future to reach 25% of the entire pool of barrels and amphorae.

The Château Doyac blend is made from 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. The new Cabernet Franc plantation will go into production in 2020 to reach eventually an amount of 25% with 60% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon.

Due to its blend, Château Doyac offers a lot of ripe red fruit, the aging in barrels contributes to the elegance of the wine. This blend gives the wine a lot of roundness and allows it to be tasted well relatively young.