Château Brane-Cantenac: The Lurton Era
Sadly Baron Hector died in 1835, just a couple of years after acquiring the estate. Back in 1794 he had married Laure de Fumel (1775 – 1813), best known for her tenure of Château Margaux, and they had one child. It was this son, one Baron Joseph-Maxime de Brane (born 1796), who subsequently inherited the estate. He then sold it to a group led by Gustave Roy, who also owned Château d’Issan, accompanied by his wife and two brothers-in-law. Here, as in almost every château profile I write, is where the rot probably began to set in.
Despite Roy’s investment in the estate, financing the construction of new cellars and vinification facilities, the property went into an almost inevitable decline. The late-19th century saw a sequence of vineyard disasters, phylloxera and oidium, compounded by war and economic depression, and as a consequence the quality of the wines faltered. In 1919 the group sold the vineyards and château to the Société des Grands Crus de France, a consortium that also owned Château Margaux, the aforementioned Château d’Issan, Château Lagrange and Château Durfort-Vivens.
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