Château Malescasse: The Tesseron Era
Despite now being a shadow of its former self the estate was ranked as a cru bourgeois supérieur in the 1932 Cru Bourgeois Classification. Even so, the spiralling decline already witnessed seems to have continued through the 20th century. When the property was purchased by an Anglo-American group during the 1970s only 4 hectares of vines remained, a fraction of the original vineyard. It was only now that the estate was subjected to the much-needed revitalisation. The new owners began replanting, and the revivification continued after 1978, when the estate was acquired by none other than Guy Tesseron.
Tesseron is of course a well-known name in Bordeaux circles today, the family being proprietors of both Château Pontet-Canet and Château Lafon-Rochet. Their great success at these two domaine has perhaps ensured that their dalliance with Château Malescasse during the 1970s is now largely forgotten. After buying the estate Guy Tesseron continued the expansion and replanting of the vineyard, but there was much other work also required. The chai needed restoration, which he undertook, and the château also needed a great deal of work. In particular the roof was noted to be a particular problem, and this perhaps explains a curious discrepancy between the appearance of the château today and that in pictures published in Cocks et Féret during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Older pictures clearly depict an attractive and rather tall mansard roof which has since disappeared; today the château is flat-topped, with an ornate stone balustrade around the roofline (as seen on the first page of this profile). I suspect that the roof was simply beyond repair (or at least the expense was too great) and this was the obvious solution.
