Château Latour: The Dovecot
It was in the early years of the 17th century that Denis de Mullet gave us a permanent indication of his prosperity, wealth which must have stemmed from his dominion over such a large tract of fertile land. Although nothing remains of the original tower, which was thoroughly sacked in 1453, and subsequently dismantled, there stands on the estate today a particularly impressive dovecot (pictured below, and on the very first page of this profile) which, it has to be said, many people have mistakenly identified as the tour after which the estate is named. It was Denis de Mullet who was responsible for its construction, sometime between 1620 and 1630. It has often been claimed that the dovecot was built using stone from the original tower; this is a possibility, although it should be noted that nearly two centuries separate the fall of one structure and the rising of the next, and so I cannot help but wonder whether this might be no more than a flight of fancy.
Denis de Mullet had at least one son, Gabriel de Mullet (died 1644), who on June 27th 1639 married Jeanne de Pontcastel. The two had a child christened Denis de Mullet (died 1660), no doubt named after his grandfather, and when the elder Denis died in 1656 the seigneurie appears to have passed to this grandson. Tragically, it was only a few years later, in 1660, that this younger Denis de Mullet also died, and he had no direct heir. As a consequence the estate was taken on by his aunt, Gabriel’s sister, Catherine de Mullet. On April 12th 1621 she married Pierre d’Aulède de Lestonnac, of the family that also owned Château Margaux. This was one of the earliest examples of the ties that have, over the centuries, linked the various first growth estates.
