Château Léoville-Barton

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A bottle of 2000 Leoville Barton

The Chateau Leoville-Barton is one of the most famous wineries of Bordeaux . Since the classification of 1855 , the winery has been classified as Deuxième Grand Cru Classé ; this is the second highest level of classification.

It is located in Saint-Julien, in the immediate vicinity of the town of Pauillac , on the "Route du Vin", the departmental road no. 2.

Wine

The three estates Léoville (las Cases, Barton and Poyferré) belonged together until the 18th century. Barton is the smallest of them and makes the second best wine behind Las Cases.

Barton's wine is made at the neighboring Château Langoa-Barton , strictly observing the separation of the differently classified plants. Both estates are owned by the Irish-born wine merchant family Barton. The owner, Anthony Barton, is a man in his seventies, an original and one of the grand seigneurs of Bordeaux wine. He is an extremely entertaining person and has known a lot of anecdotes about him. The best known is probably his assessment of the double bottle Magnum:

“A magnum bottle? Just the right size for a nice evening. Provided you start with a champagne , you end the menu with a Sauternes , and you are at home alone ... "

The best wines ever produced by this producer are those from the 1990 and 1996 vintages and especially 2000 (96 out of 100 possible points according to the wine rating by Robert Parker ). A bottle of these vintages can rarely be bought for less than 120 euros (as of 2006).

Château Léoville-Barton is accompanied and advised by the oenologist Jacques Boissenot and his son Eric.

history

The vineyards of the Château are part of the former large estate of Léoville: At the beginning of the 17th century, the lands along the Gironde belonged to the Seigneurie de Lamarque . It was thanks to the Dutch to have drained the wetlands along the river. The first usable areas were laid out in 1638 on an area that was drained early on a higher gravel knoll. It was the de Moytié family who started growing wine here in the second half of the 17th century . The gravel dome was later named Mont Moytié. In 1707, the politician and President of Parliament took possession of Bordeaux and later bequeathed it to his two daughters. One of the women married the influential Blaise Antoine Alexandre de Gasq, Seigneur von Léoville and also a member of the Parliament of Bordeaux. After an inheritance dispute between Moytié's daughters, de Gasq managed to reunite the separate estates. The areas ranged from Château Beychevelle in the south to Château Latour in Pauillac in the north.

De Gasq died childless in 1769 and the Léoville estate passed into the inheritance of four nephews under the chairmanship of Marquis de Las Cases Beauvoir. The property was administered by Jean-Pierre d'Abbadie and Bernard and Jean-Joseph d'Alozier. During the turmoil of the French Revolution , the Marquis had to flee the country. However, he managed not to lose his property as a common good ( Bien national ). It only parted with just under a quarter of the areas that were later shaped by Hugh Barton to form Château Léoville-Barton .

The son of the Marquis, Pierre-Jean de Las Cases, Maréchal de Camps, directed the fortunes of the remaining estate from 1815. In 1840, however, the property was further divided as part of the succession . While Pierre-Jean kept almost two thirds ( Château Léoville-las-Cases ), the other third was transferred to his sister Jeanne de Las-Cases. The name Château Léoville-Poyferré came about through the marriage of Jeanne to Jean-Marie de Poyferré .

The Barton family

The Barton family's winemaking history can be traced back to 1725. The young Irishman Thomas Barton (born December 21, 1694 in Drunkeeran near Enniskillen in County Fermanagh ; died October 18, 1780) moved with his family to the Bordeaux area and started a wine trade. In particular, he supplied the Dutch and Irish markets. In 1728 he was already exporting 2,700 barrels of wine, and in 1745 he was the most important wine merchant in Bordeaux. His business success enabled the French Tom, called Barton, to acquire his own winery with Château Le Bosq in Saint-Estèphe .

His grandson Hugh Barton (1766-1854) made the trade more dynamic by teaming up with the French shipowner Daniel Guestier. Guestier operated the ship Le Grand Nancy , which, due to its speed , was able to break through the English naval blockade off the French coast. As a result, the trading house Barton & Guestier was able to continue trading in wine almost unscathed.

During the French Revolution, Hugh Barton had to leave the country for security reasons after a brief prison term in 1793 and his partner Guestier ran the business alone at times. After Hugh's return, he bought Château Langoa-Barton in 1821 and only five years later acquired part of the Léoville estate and founded Château Léoville-Barton.

literature

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