Château Fourcas Dupré
Vines have no doubt been planted around the hamlet of Le Fourcas for several hundred years, having first appeared on the Belleyme map which dates to the late-18th century. At this time the nascent domaine was known as Cru Roullet, and it came into the possession of Marie-Nicole Mal de Saint-Géran, the widow of Jean-Louis Hostein Dussort. She sold up in 1843, and the buyer was Jean Antoine Baptiste Dupré (c.1801 – 1875), known to his friends as Adolphe. An avocat in the Cour d’Appel in Bordeaux, he paid 275,000 francs for the privilege.
Adolphe Dupré
Although not the grandest of domaines, the estate appears in some of the earliest documents regarding the wines of the Médoc. Writing in Traité sur les vins du Médoc (second edition, Chaumas, 1845), Wilhelm Franck recorded the existence of Cru Roullet, at this time in the hands of Adolphe Dupré, with an annual production between 25 and 30 tonneaux. Presumably he expanded the domaine, either with the acquisition or planting of new vineyards, because five years later the authors of the 1850 Cocks et Féret noted that production had rocketed to 100 tonneaux per annum, a rise that was maintained during the ensuing years.
