Clos des Jacobins: The Laveau Family
The vineyard at La Gomerie was extensive, and was not sold to only one buyer. A number of sections were auctioned off, and one such parcel of vines was acquired by the Laveau family. This was the origin of Château Franc-Mayne as well as Clos des Jacobins. When the very first edition of Cocks et Féret was published in 1850, however, while Château Franc-Mayne was listed third in St Emilion, just behind those domaines which we know today as Château Bélair-Monange and Château Troplong-Mondot, Clos des Jacobins was nowhere to be seen. It seems certain that the vineyards of Clos des Jacobins were not yet separated out, and were thus still part of Château Franc-Mayne. The high level of production, an impressive 70 tonneaux per annum, making it by far the largest domaine in the region, would support this notion.
Somewhere at this point in the story the vineyard that would grow into Clos des Jacobins was born. It is plausible that the split came very soon, as according to Wilhelm Franck, writing in Traité sur les vins du Médoc (third edition, Chaumas, 1853), production at the estate dropped off sharply. The vineyards had been sold, and the new proprietor was Pierre Edmond Fourcaud (born 1804, and usually referred to as Edmond), who was now making just 15 to 20 tonneaux per annum from his 15 hectares. The most likely explanation is that concurrent with the change in hands from Laveau to Fourcaud the domaine had been further broken up, and I have wondered if this led to the creation of the Clos des Jacobins vineyards. Against this theory, however, is the lack of any mention of the domaine during the years that followed, and so it is perhaps more likely that the relevant split came later.
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