Château Phélan-Ségur: Frank Phélan
Our knowledge of Bernard’s activities during the decades that followed seem rather sparse. What we know with certainty is that when he died in 1841 he bequeathed his property to his son Pierre-François Jean Scott Phélan (1820 – 1833). Finding Pierre-François somewhat too formal he went by the name Frank, not a particularly French name although it is noteworthy than it was at this point that Phelan became Phélan.
Frank Phélan’s tenure was a long one, and during it he did much to develop the property, and today his name lives on in the second wine. Soon after taking control of the property he married his cousin, Wilhelmine Guestier (1822 – 1890). They would go on to have three daughters, Anna (1843 – 1869), Marie Elisabeth (1844 – 1918) and Catherine (1849 – 1925). A few years later he was also elected mayor of St Estèphe, a post he held for thirty years from 1849. By 1874 he had expanded the domaine to cover 140 hectares, of which 65 hectares were planted to vines. He died on April 22nd 1883, bequeathing the property to his widow Wilhelmine.
Joseph-Principe Chayoux
Wilhelmine took the property in hand but after her death in 1890 it passed to her two surviving daughters, Marie Elisabeth, who had married Georges Camille Louis Le Sourd (1834 – 1877), and Catherine, who had married Gabriel Martell (1839 – 1889). Both were already widows, and rather than dividing the domaine they ran it as one. It was a difficult period for France and its vineyards though, as the vines were battered by a sequence of diseases including phylloxera, oidium and mildew. Nevertheless they soldiered on, and it was only with the passing of Marie Elisabeth in 1918 that Catherine, together with Marie’s children, decided to sell the property.
