Vats and barrels, fermentations control

Good harvest conditions, botrytis that sets in nicely and evenly: the best grapes are selected from each sorting batch and the end result is a wine with good clean aromas.

VINEYARD SIZE: 33 hectares
VINE DENSITY: 6600 stocks per hectare
AVERAGE AGE OF VINEYARD: 40 years
AVERAGE PRODUCTION: 3000 cases
SOILS AND SUBSOILS: Gravelly soils, clayey-gravelly subsoil
GRAPE VARIETIES: Semillon 80%, Sauvignon 20%
HARVEST: Uniquely hand picked, by successive selections through the wines, (2 to 6 selections) selecting only botrytised grapes.

Chateau Rabaud-Promis is an intense and structured Sauternes whose reputation is growing in proportion with the painstaking care its authors devote it. Ageing extends its aromatic complexity to a spectacular dimension. When young, it has a buttercup yellow colour and lovely notes of gorses and lime blossom. Delicate grapefruit flavours develop with time maturing into characteristic citrus fruits and honey aromas. The food pairings are easy to imagine: foie gras, feuilleté of veal sweetbreads or game pies, roasted fowl. This latter affinity is no news to the Déjean family: Whenever there was roast chicken for dinner, says Philippe, my father would fetch a bottle of Sauternes wine from the cellar!

Best with: A red fruit foie gras terrine, lobster in herb sauce, spit-roast suckling pig or an almond tart…