Château Larmande: Gaston Méneret
During these latter years, Philippe Bourgès Saint-Genis employed a régisseur by the name of Gaston Méneret. As Philippe advanced in years, with no willing heir, the domaine was ultimately made available for sale. Thus, sometime around World War I, the domaine changed hands. Gaston Méneret was the buyer, although he did not have the necessary finances to go it alone, and he thus entered a partnership with an old friend named Amédée Capdemourlin.
The Capdemourlins are a well known family in the region with many centuries of activity around St Emilion, and today they are still proprietors of both Château Cap de Mourlin and Château Balestard-Tonnelle. The two new owners continued where the others left off, with an annual output of 20 tonneaux. The deuxième cru vines of Jean Despagne were also still being tended, although they were now in the hands of a gentleman called Mérias, and named Domaine de Larmande. There was no sign of the Boitard vines.
Jean-Fernand Méneret-Capdemourlin
Gaston had a son, named Germain Méneret, while Amédée had a daughter named Alice Capdemourlin. Germain and Alice married, and they received the domaine as a wedding gift. Thus the estate passed to the next generation. In terms of volume of production the estate also grew dramatically, and it seems likely that the Méneret-Capdemourlin partnership subsequently took over the vines of Domaine de Larmande.
