Château Latour: The Modern Era
The merchants – Barton et Guestier and Nathaniel Johnston – had their slice of Château Latour for but a few years, however, as in a shrewd move their more noble counterparts put the estate up for auction, no doubt persuading the merchants to do the same, before buying it back themselves and essentially giving their commercial bedfellows the elbow. The Ségur family regained control of the estate having purchased it for 1,511,000 francs, although as they were really buying it mostly from themselves they actually spent far less than this. What I imagine they really spent was something like 20% of this figure, the sum required to buy out the merchant shareholders, plus any associated fees and costs.
In order to prevent this problem recurring in 1842 the proprietors then formed the Société Civile du Vignoble du Château Latour, the first such estate to be incorporated in the region, and family members took on the role of shareholders in the newly created business. The firm of Barton et Guestier was reduced once more to that of a mere négociant as far as Latour was concerned, but the firm did retain exclusive rights of distribution of the wine from 1844 until 1853, a very lucrative deal indeed. The Société Civile, meanwhile, remained in the hands of solely the Ségur descendants right up until 1962, a great success for the family.
