Château Corbin: Jean Chaperon-Grangère
Jean married Marguerite Delphine Rulleau (1780 – 1845) and they had six children. After Jean’s death in 1832 it was Marguerite who took over the running of the estate, and strangely the Veuve Chaperon-Grangère was recorded as still being in charge at the time the 1850 Cocks et Féret was published, despite her having died five years earlier. I can only assume the authors were working with information which was a few years out of date; either that or Marguerite had a very serious work ethic. The estate was listed quite high up in the lowly troisième classe, in the Sables de St Emilion. The domination of this particular corner of St Emilion by these négociants at this time was plain to see, as various Chaperons were listed as proprietors of most of the larger domaines.
Paul Chaperon
Sometime after Marguerite’s death in 1845 the vineyard passed to a distant cousin of her late husband named Jean-Paul Chaperon (1826 – 1903), who seems to have gone by the name of Paul. He and the late Jean Chaperon-Grangère were related, both being descendants of Arnaud Chaperon (1686 – 1719). Paul Chaperon directed the running of the Corbin and Jean Faure estates as one for more than five decades, right up until his death in 1903. During this time, however, it is clear from various editions of Cocks et Féret that he was not alone in tending vines on these lands. From the 1860s through to the 1890s production on the combined Corbin et Jean Faure domaine was between 20 and 30 tonneaux per annum. Across the same time period there was a second domaine, known variably as Jean Faure or Jeanfaure, run by a Monsieur Penaud, in later years by Veuve Penaudet fils, even later Émile Peynaud (not the famous oenologist of the same name, who was not born until 1912) the family name having seemingly mutated. This second vineyard at Jean Faure was of comparable size, typically turning out 25 to 30 tonneaux per annum.
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