Château Chasse-Spleen: Quel remède pour….
How the estate came to be named Château Chasse-Spleen is the stuff of myth and legend, with two popular theories competing. The first suggests that the name originated from a poem, Spleen, by Charles Baudelaire (1821 – 1867). He had called in on the Castaing family when visiting his friend the artist Odilon Redon (1840 – 1916), who originated from the Bordeaux region and whose family had property near Moulis. While this is an interesting thought, having looked over the poem I see that although it does refer to spleen, it does not make any mention of chasse at all, so I remain unconvinced.
Having said that, I am not at all sure about the veracity of the alternative competing theory. This purports that the estate is named in honour of Lord Byron (1788 – 1824). Byron also visited the estate, during a journey from London down to Seville, and he found it did wonders for his mood. “Quel remède pour chasser le spleen“, he is supposed to have exclaimed, in other words, “what a remedy to chase away the blues”. At least this theory makes sense, and the Castaing family did have to come up with a name for this newly cleaved-off section before taking the wines to the 1862 International Exhibition in London.
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