Château Gruaud-Larose: Abbé & Chevalier
The second source informing us as to the existence of vines and winemaking at Gruaud comes from the archives of the broker Abraham Lawton in 1742. I suspect the vineyard was by this time already well established, and that locals had been buying the wine for years, but Tastet et Lawton had only been trading since 1739, and so their archives do not inform us prior to this date. Their records reveal that in 1742, three years before Tourny’s purge, the firm sold more than 38 tonneaux of the Gruaud wine, at a price of 350 livres per tonneau.
What is more, records from 1746 indicate the firm actually sold two Gruaud wines, one made by the Abbé Gruaud, 15 tonneaux of his wine selling for the handsome price of 650 livres apiece, while there was another wine made by the Chevalier Gruaud, here just 2 tonneaux each selling for the even more impressive price of 700 livres. Further trades followed over the next few years, more from Abbé Gruaud in 1748, and something referred to as the vieux vin (old wine) of Gruaud in 1749 and 1754. Whatever penalty they may have suffered consequent upon the actions of the Conseil d’État, it seems than business was booming.
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