Château Lynch-Bages: The Cazes Era
Despite having influence, power, titles and wealth one thing escaped the brothers Jean-Baptiste and Michel; neither had managed to sire an heir. As a consequence, after their passing (Jean-Baptiste dying in 1835, and Michel in 1840) most authors agree that the Lynch estate was broken and sold off. This breaking up of the estate gives us the origins of both Château Lynch-Moussas and Château Lynch-Bages. Quite where the name Moussas came from isn’t totally clear, although the Bages suffix clearly reflects the more easterly location of these vineyards on the Bages plateau.
The buyer of the part of the estate that would become today’s Château Lynch-Bages was Sébastien Jurine, a Swiss wine merchant. He acquired the vineyards but no notable château; as already noted, that went with the more inland vineyards, and is now Château Lynch-Moussas.
From Jurine the property passed to his son André-Louis, but following his death in 1861, by which time the estate was ranked a cinquième cru in the 1855 classification, the estate – at this time known as Jurine-Bages – was sold in order to settle the inheritance.It was taken on by two brothers, Jérôme-Maurice and Henri Cayrou, local négociants, who reverted to the name Lynch-Bages. They also made some significant developments on the property, Jérôme signing off on the construction of a two-level vinification facility, built with advice from Pierre Skawinski who was running Château Giscours. Pierre’s son Théophile Skawinski (1841 – 1930) would, by the way, go on to acquire Château Léoville-Las-Cases. The new cellars allowed the freshly picked grapes to be hoisted to an upper level where they could be crushed in a mobile press which ran on wheels, which could then be manoeuvred so the fruit could easily be deposited in the fermentation vats below, a very early version of a gravity-fed winery. This facility remained in use until 1976, after which it was superseded by new facilities; it still exists though, preserved for future generations to view.
From the Cayrou brothers the estate was passed down to Maurice’s daughter, and then to General Félix de Vial (1864 – 1949). It was the General who brought the Cazes family and Lynch-Bages together, first when he leased the vineyards to them, and eventually selling the estate to Jean-Charles Cazes in 1939.
