Freedom · White wine, Vin de France

Caprice2025

Still maturing in our cellar — released only in its drinking phase.

Ageing in bottle

Arriving

Like an afternoon at Cap Ferret.

Caprice 2025, Weißwein (Vin de France) – Flasche auf dem Tisch am Bassin d'Arcachon, mit Fisch und Austern

Flint and salt, slender and cool. A wine that goes its own way and stays precise.

Free in its ideas, yet played with precision – that is how a capriccio sounds, and how this wine tastes.

A mild winter, budbreak two weeks earlier than usual, then heavy rain over Easter that filled the water reserves. May through August ran consistently above average; August brought ten days above 35 degrees and almost forty days without appreciable rain. The dry white wines were therefore picked as early as August — some three weeks earlier than in a normal year, in the cool hours before sunrise. Yields were below the usual for the whites as well; across Bordeaux it was the smallest crop since 1991.

Grape varieties: 100% Alvarinho
Drinking window: 2028 – 2035
Decanting: aerate 30–60 min

Wind off the Atlantic

Caprice 2025, Weißwein – so wird dieser Jahrgang einmal serviert: Tisch zwischen Kiefern und Dünengras am Wasser, mit Austern und Oliven

Caprice 2025, Weißwein – so wird dieser Jahrgang einmal serviert: Terrassentisch vor dem Steg im Abendlicht, mit Austern und Oliven

The first glass

The flavour profile of Caprice 2025

Caprice is Alvarinho from a single parcel at the edge of the forest, made in the reductive school of the great white Burgundies. In the glass it shows flint and wet stone, a salty trace and restrained yellow fruit; on the palate it stays slender, cool and precise. A white wine for curious drinkers, already a pleasure when young and able to age for years.

Why Caprice

A free form, played with precision.

A suite is a sequence of dances. Each has its own character, and only all together do they make the whole. That is how our estate is built: each cuvée is inspired by a movement of this suite and takes on the character of its form.The capriccio is one of the freest forms in music, full of ideas and yet played with great precision. Stravinsky gave his Capriccio for piano and orchestra exactly this blend of esprit and discipline. Our Caprice stands outside the sequence: a micro-cuvée from a single parcel at the edge of the forest, Alvarinho on Bordeaux soil, made in the reductive school. That is why there are only a few bottles of it, and why it tastes of flint and salt.

Caprice is our homage to freedom: independent in style, exact in execution.

Igor Stravinsky — Capriccio, 3rd movement

Barriques des Caprice im Keller von LaSuite aux Conseillans

Harvest 2025

In the Domaine's cellar since the 2025 harvest.

Aged in our own cellar.

Aged in our own cellar, reductively and with little intervention, then bottle ageing until we consider the wine ready to drink.

Cellar & Craft

Maturity — how it drinks today

Still maturing in the cellar

Expected to be ready to drink: around 2028

Optimal drinking window of Caprice 2025

2028 – 2035

Our principles

Why we take the trouble

Ageing in our own cellar

Most of our wines go on sale only once they are ready to drink; until then they mature with us, and we carry the risk.

Composed plot by plot

Each plot is vinified separately; only at the end do we compose the cuvée from them.

Time as an ingredient

Depth takes time. We give the wines the years in barrel and bottle that they need.

Organic & HVE4

The Domaine's vineyards are certified organic and HVE4, set within a 19-hectare ecosystem of woodland, meadows, water and vines.

Caprice, Weißwein (Vin de France) – die Parzelle am Waldrand aus der Luft

The terroir and the wine it yields

Where it comes from

Caprice grows on a single small parcel at the edge of the forest: C15, a sandy soil found nowhere else on the Domaine. This is where the Alvarinho stands, planted in 2019, so the vines are still young. From this sand and our reductive hand comes a wine with a flinty, salty minerality.

Watercolour map of LaSuite aux Conseillans with the 16 numbered parcels, coloured by the four terroirs: clay, clay-gravel, gravel and sand — The 16 parcels of the Domaine, about five hectares of vines. The colours show our four terroirs.

The blend of Caprice 2025

A single-variety wine, one origin

100%Alvarinho

Precision & method

In the tradition of modern oenology

Aux Conseillans was for decades the Domaine of Jean Ribéreau-Gayon — one of the co-founders of modern oenology, founder of the Institute of Oenology at the University of Bordeaux (1949) and long-time owner of the estate. We work in that tradition: each plot analysed and vinified separately, the ageing guided under control, drinking maturity checked in a blind tasting.

The legacy of the oenologists

For this place

A long road.

Regenerative farming, and one fine day carbon neutral: there is a long road ahead. Our vines are certified organic and HVE4, the highest level of France’s official environmental certification. Three examples of what we do beyond that.

Hedgerows Some 2,000 shrubs, newly planted along the vines: nesting sites for birds, guiding lines for bats.
Glass 405 grams. Glass is one of the largest sources of CO2 in a bottle of wine, which is why ours is light.
Cork Diam Origine: cork, bound with a plant-based binder and beeswax. Free from cork taint, even after many years.

How we work with the land

The second hour

After an hour in the decanter the reduction loses its edge, and flint and salt come through more clearly.

Your evening

A wine for the table.

Dishes to pair

A selection from our recipe kitchen, matched to the structure and maturity of this wine.

Almejas a la marinera – clams in white wine, garlic & parsley

Arroz caldoso de bogavante – soupy lobster rice with saffron

Bacalao al pil-pil – cod in emulsified garlic oil

Brandade de morue – Provençal salt cod cream, gratinated

Chipirones a la andaluza – fried baby squid with lemon

Crudo di gamberi rossi – raw red prawns, Sicilian style

Grilled duck breast in Mediterranean herb marinade

Flétan rôti, sauce hollandaise & green asparagus

All recipes

The mood to match the wine

A playlist for the moment

If you are a friend of classical music, here is a playlist that may suit your evening and the character of this wine. One possibility among many; listen in, if you like.

Sound of Caprice · Listen on Spotify

Ageing in bottle

Not yet ready to drink