2019 Domaine de Baronarques Chardonnay Limoux Blanc Languedoc 750 ml

The Rothschild family rarely leaves Bordeaux to make wine—but when they do, their sole aim is to create an icon.

Just look at the Baron Philippe de Rothschild portfolio: Château Mouton Rothschild, Château Clerc-Milon, Château d’Armailhac, Opus One, and Chile’s Almaviva are all first-class estates.

To that list you can also add Domaine de Baronarques from Limoux, in France’s Aude Valley. It’s a wine that the Prince of Monaco and Restaurant Jean-Georges have been proud to pour. 

Prior to the phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century, the wines of Limoux were highly regarded. When Thomas Jefferson imported bottles for his personal cellar in Monticello, on one invoice he ordered 12 cases of Burgundy’s famed Le Montrachet and 12 cases of Limoux Blanc—and they commanded exactly the same price!  

Limoux enjoys a unique position in the normally roasting Languedoc: It’s just 60 miles from the Mediterranean and 240 miles from the Atlantic, so it’s subject to the moderating effects of both bodies of water. It’s also perched at around 1,000 feet of elevation, where the cool-climate property gets tons of sunshine. Add in the balanced amount of rainfall the area receives and you’ve got the formula for vineyard land that captured the imagination of one of the world’s foremost winemaking families.   

Once the Rothschilds took control of the estate in 1998, they assembled an A-team from Mouton and Opus One and dedicated five years to bringing the estate up to the family’s level of excellence. They also installed a new state-of-the-art cellar, and in 2003, Baronarques made the initial wine of this new era. Their first vintage of Chardonnay was in 2009, and it was stellar  from the beginning.