Château Feytit-Clinet: The Chasseuil Era
After Raymond Tajus the property came into the hands of Henry Tane, who purchased the estate in the early 20th century. He married a Charlotte Domergue, and the Tane-Domergue descendants seem to have maintained a hold, albeit sometimes a tenuous one, on the estate right up until the latter years of the 20th century. Numerous texts concerning Pomerol and its wines make passing mention of the Tane-Domergue family, but few provide any useful details. Madame Henry Tane is listed as a supporter of the historian Jean-André Garde in Histoire de Pomerol (Imprimerie Libournaise, 1946) but no other mention of the family is made in the text. Bernard Ginestet, writing in Pomerol (Jacques Legrand SA, 1984), indicates that the property is in the ownership of the Héritiers Tane-Domergue, but also makes clear that by this time the property was being managed, on a métayage agreement, by the Moueix family. Even by this time, however, the property was in a state of transition, and was about to change hands definitively. The incoming owner was a wine fanatic by the name of Michel-Jack Chasseuil.
Michel-Jack Chasseuil
Michel-Jack Chasseuil was not born to wine; in truth he was the grandson of a stonemason, the son of a rural postman, born in La Chapelle-Bâton, a village some way north-east of Bordeaux, to the south of Poitiers. Nevertheless he seems to have left behind his simple origins, first undertaking military service in Strasbourg, then forging a career with Dassault Aviation, a name which will be familiar to fans of St Emilion, who may well know the wines of Château Dassault, an elegant château and vineyard owned by the same family.
