Château Bellefont-Belcier: The 20th Century
The Belcier estate was presumably confiscated as a bien national and sold off, and whoever purchased it must have already been wealthy, as a few years later in 1803 an elegant château was built. Despite this the property appears to be absent in the 1850 edition of Cocks et Féret, and only makes its first appearance in the 1868 edition. The authors noted the existence of an estate named Bellefond in St Laurent des Combes, in the possession of a Monsieur Lusseaud, turning out between 12 and 15 tonneaux (the equivalent of 48 to 60 barriques) of wine per annum. The name bellefont was apparently derived from belles fontaines, referring to the numerous freshwater springs that emerge here.
In the same edition of Cocks et Féret I note that there was a Château Béard in the same commune, in the ownership of a Monsieur Naudin, turning out 20 to 25 tonneaux per annum. In 1871 the Bellefont estate was sold to a gentleman named Naudin, presumably he of Château Béard. According to the 1874 edition Monsieur Naudin had already enlarged the Bellefont estate, the vineyard now accounting for 19 hectares, and it was producing 30 tonneaux per annum. The domaine seems to have been doing rather well; the authors noted that it enjoyed a picturesque position on a south-facing slope, and that the wine made here had been awarded medals at expositions in Roche-sur-Yon in 1873 and Niort in 1874.
