Château Thieuley: Léopold Pradet
Despite this lack of historical information we do know in these early days the proprietor was Léopold Pradet, a wealthy entrepreneur who operated a fleet of fishing vessels out of Bordeaux. He purchased the estate and is also said to have built the château. Whether or not there were vines here or not isn’t certain, but I imagine there were. He was still the incumbent when the 1922 Cocks et Féret was published, which did deign to describe the vineyards of La Sauve. At Tiouleyre, as the estate was referred to, the authors noted the presence of one Monsieur Pradet, who was turning out 5 tonneaux of red wines and 30 tonneaux of white wines per annum.
Subsequently the estate was sold, presumably by Pradet or his héritiers, to André Courselle. The year was 1950. André already owned a domaine in Castillon, but he was finding it difficult to sell his red wines. At the time the trade in white wines seemed to be better, and so he decided to sell up. With the proceeds of the sale he bought this domaine in the Entre-Deux-Mers, purely for its white vineyards. It is said there were just 4 hectares planted at this time, although I suspect looking at the production back in 1922 that there had been more under Léopold Pradet. There may have been some decline in the intervening years.
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