Château Margaux: Corinne Mentzelopoulos
With the passing of André Mentzelopoulos all the family businesses including Château Margaux came to André’s widow and their daughter, Corinne Mentzelopoulos. With the aid of general manager Philip Barré, and esteemed consultant Professor Emile Peynaud (1912 – 2004), Corinne and the Margaux team continued with the programme of improvements.
In 1983 they were joined by Paul Pontallier (1956 – 2016), who was instrumental in the search for even higher levels of quality from the hallowed but perhaps – at that time – not thoroughly exploited terroir around the château. He did not shy away from extreme efforts to gain even the smallest iota of extra quality, pushing harder and harder for the tiniest of gains, making the wines of the modern-day Château Margaux among the most elegant of the Médoc. At this point the vineyard had grown to 85 hectares in red, and 12 hectares in white, and the portfolio of wines was well established, with the grand vin in red partnered by a second wine and a white cuvée, the latter two under the names Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux and Pavillon Blanc du Château Margaux.
Perceiving a need to develop the estate, Corinne Mentzelopoulos began looking for outside investment, and in 1990 she struck a deal with the Italian industrialist Giovanni ‘Gianni’ Agnelli (1921 – 2003), grandson of the founder of Fiat, head of the Agnelli family and Italy’s richest man. He took a controlling 75% stake in Château Margaux, essentially becoming the owner of the property (just a couple of decades after the French president had blocked its sale to an American), although Corinne retained total control of the management of the estate. The shares were held by an Agnelli subsidiary called Exor, and as part of the deal Corinne took some shares in this business. The capital raised allowed Corinne to invest further in the estate, with new facilities including the installation of a gravity feed system in the cellars.
