Château du Tertre: Henri Koenigswarter
During the ensuing years the property continued to change hands. After just twelve years Joseph Guy sold the estate, the buyer being Bernard de Brezets (1783 – 1838), the mayor of Arsac. He bequeathed it to his wife, Marthe Françoise Dufresne (born 1801), who took possession on June 5th 1819. Sadly the Brezets family had run up some debts, their creditor being Marie Catherine Antoinette de Sentout (1785 – 1856), the wife of Gabriel Louis George Ferrière (1766 – c.1841), and they were forced to place the property on the market once more. In 1842 it was purchased by Charles-Hugues Henry de Vallandé (1803 – c.1868), a conseiller in the imperial court in Bordeaux. It was therefore Vallandé who was at the helm when the property was ranked as a fifth growth in the 1855 classification of the Médoc, before he then passed the estate to his son Albert-Henry de Vallandé in 1869.
Albert-Henry was clearly not as interested as his father was in viticulture though, as in 1870 the domaine was sold again, the buyer this time Henri Koenigswarter (1819 – 1876). What he acquired had grown considerably since the time of Joseph Guy, as the estate now boasted 125 hectares, 50 of which were dedicated to the vine. Henri’s main contribution was to oversee a renovation of the cellars, and the construction of accommodation for his workers. Only a few years later, however, he died, and the domaine was then passed to his widow.
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