Prince Poniatowski
Once a significant name in the Vouvray appellation, the Prince Poniatowski domaine is now defunct; the property was sold on, and the vineyards thus passed into new hands, ones that would appear to have considerably more skill than those of the previous owner if the quality of the wine is anything to judge by (and it usually is). The old wines have their fans, and I still have some older bottles tucked away in the cellar to see how they fair into their old age, but I see much greater quality in the current releases from these vineyards than we were seeing a decade or two ago. The proprietor was, before the change in ownership, Prince Philippe Poniatowski, a scion of the Polish royal family. Today, however, the vineyards have been absorbed into a domaine that will be well known to all fans of the Loire Valley, a certain François Chidaine. Before we come to the domaine’s sticky end though, let us first look back at the history of the domaine itself.
Prince Philippe Poniatowski
The title of prince was no affectation, as Philippe Poniatowski was a descendant of Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1732-1798), the last King and Grand Duke of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Following the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising, a failed attempt to liberate Poland and Lithuania from Russian influence, the Commonwealth came to an end and Stanislaw left Poland under Russian escort, to live out his days a virtual prisoner in the Marble Palace of St Petersburg. He signed his abdication in 1795, and Poland effectively came under Russian rule, first under Catherine II, but following her death a year later under Paul I. Stanislaw died a couple of years later, of a stroke.
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