Château Tour Prignac

An everlasting discovery The château, Western front

Research and texts realised by Yann Chaigne, Art Historian hâteau Tour Prignac was given its name by current owners the Castel Cfamily, shortly after becoming part of the group. The name combines a reference to the towers which adorn the Château and to the vil- lage of Prignac-en-Médoc, close to Lesparre, in which it is situated. With 147 hectares of vines, Château Tour Prignac is one of the largest vineyards in France today.

The estate was once known as La Tartuguière, a name derived from the term tortugue or tourtugue, an archaic rural word for tortoise. We can only assume that the name alluded to the presence of tortoises in nearby waters. A series of major projects was undertaken very early on to drain the land here, which like much of the Médoc Region, was fairly boggy. The Tartuguière fountain, however, which Abbé Baurein described in his “Variétés borde- loises”, as “noteworthy for the abundance and quality of its water”, continues to flow on the outskirts of this prestigious Château.

The history and architecture of the estate give us many clues to the reasons behind its present appearance. There is no concrete evidence that the Romans were present in the Médoc, neither is there any physical trace of a mediaeval Châ- teau at Tartuguière; it is probable, however, that a house existed here, and that the groundwork was laid for a basic farming operation at the end of the 15th century, shortly after the Battle of Cas- tillon which ended the Hundred Years War. The layout of the site has many features typical of the 17th century; this type of estate was frequently rebuilt on existing foundations, wealth and the acquisition of extra land permitting. The seigneurie at Lesparre was for a long time at the head of Tartuguière, administered by a succession of noble families. The seigneurs, or landlords, tended to be noblemen who lived in town, but who would occasionally visit the estate to inspect the farm and its workers, or sim- ply to escape city life.

In his will dated 1602, Arnaud de Mullet, who owned and had unified the Latour Estate at Pauillac, bequeathed to one of his sons “the house and buildings in the fiefdom of Tartuguière”, which testifies to the age of these first structures. Many of the de Mullet family served in the Bordeaux Parliament of the time. The de Mullet de Volu- zan branch of the family was one of the wealthiest in the Médoc, and headed up a vast number of properties. The Tartuguière Estate belonged to various members of this family for over a century.

The Château’s towers In the 18th century the Château passed into the hands of Count Charles Belrieu de Virazel via his wife, the sole remaining heir of the Mullet de Voluzan family. Charles Belrieu came from a highly aristocratic Protestant family, originally from Périgord. He renounced his beliefs and converted to Catholicism in or- der to keep, among other things, his post as one of the principal magistrates in the Bordeaux Par- liament. His daughter Catherine de Belrieu married Henry d’Augéard, the Parliament’s Président à mortier, and himself also the son of a noble Protestant family. At that time Tartuguière was the only manor house in Prignac. It was briefly sequestered by the State after the Revolution, but was returned to the D’Augéard family, where it remained until the beginning of the 19th century. Château Tartuguière ( from Bordeaux and its Wines, Ch. Cocks and E Féret, 7th edition 1898)

Tartuguière saw a succession of owners during the second half of the 19th century. It was sold by D’Augéard in 1906 to Sieur Pelissier, a Bordeaux lawyer, who made it over in 1810 to Général Dufour. It is probable that Dufour instigated some major refurbishment work, as when his heirs sold the property in 1821 it was described as “newly built”. The purchaser was merchant M. Mayer Franck, who retained the property for some 30 years.

In 1856, Tartuguière was acquired by Pierre-Edouard Seignouret who was, for a time, a merchant in Louisiana like his father François. He made some marked improvements, including major water engineering works, the addition of a young vineyard and the construction of a new winery. It was a very active period in the estate’s history. On his death in 1895, Pierre-Edouard’s son Albert Seignouret, an agri- cultural engineer, continued with his father’s work. Albert was always on the lookout for something new and different, such as a “hybrid” plantation of varietals; this earned him a reputation in the wine community as a dreamer and something of a maverick. Pierre-Edouard Seignouret

The Tartuguière estate was sold in 1935 to the Duc del Infantado. This was the beginning of a descent into obscurity, a dormant period in the Château’s history.

Its renaissance came in 1973 when, prior to becoming Tour Prignac, the estate underwent tremendous changes in terms of growth and production quality; the changes were all instigated by its new owners, the Castel Family. Plans of the estate show that it bore all the hallmarks of a typical large farming concern of the 17th century : a manor house with its own private courtyard flanked by an elegant tower on either side, with a second courtyard enclosing several working buildings. A dovecote, indicates a history of great wealth. Several structures were added later, in- cluding a barrel-house, a fermenting room, a barn and a chapel.

Architecturally, the Château can be described as an influential ma- nor house with a small loft at the top of the building. The conside- rable height of the chimneys leads us to suspect that the height of the original roof was somewhat greater. The house was fully moder- nised in the 19th century, as evidenced by the style of the windows and the neo-classical interior décor. A star-shaped parquet floor in the entrance hall is a fine example of the highly detailed work commissio- ned by Albert Seignouret. The main staircase is somewhat older, probably 17th century. The underground cel- lar consists of a vault with rustic ru- bblestone facing. The towers too seem to date from the 17th century. Similar architectural details can be found on many wine producing estates, such as Château d’Yquem. The pillars on either side of the gate leading into the private courtyard are also from former times; both are fitted with guardstones to ensure that the struc- ture was not damaged by the wheels of carts or wagons. The working buildings, i.e. the barrel-house with its external access stairs, the fermenting room, the barns, the workers’ quarters and the various outbuildings are built on a base of quarry stone, which bears witness to the age of The Estate’s the site. first winery

The chapel with its neo-gothic tra- cery dates from the 19th century. It was built on an existing foundation at the instigation of Pierre-Edouard Seignouret, probably for his de- voutly religious wife Léonie Süe. Prignac-en-Médoc has never been home to a religious order, the nea- rest being in Ordonnac. The theory that the Château, and therefore the chapel, could have been built by A detail of the chapel clergy is completely unfounded. The estate grew up over the centuries thanks to the accumulation of wealth by the seigneurs of Lesparre.

The pigeon tower is most certainly the oldest of its type in the re- gion. The term pigeon tower tends to be used nowadays, but at the time, it was known as a dovecote. Birds were kept to “produce” a very high quality fertilizer (known as colombine), while their meat was prized as a delicacy. The cylindrical shape of the pigeon tower at Tartuguière helps us establish its age; it has a conical roof and a perch in the shape of a quarter circle, with fine ornamental moulding around the sky- light opening. This combination of features leads us to conclude that the tower was built around the first half of the 17th century. The tower houses an exceptionally large number of cubbies for nesting birds, from which we surmise that the noble families residing at Tartuguière were very wealthy indeed. The dovecote at Tartuguière An atmosphere of serenity envelops the estate, due in no small part to the outstanding natural environment. A grand avenue of plane trees, also featuring a one-hundred-year-old oak tree, leads the visitor up to the Château; there are gardens and a small wood containing several species of tree. Behind the Château, a small lake and the Tar- tuguière fountain make their own contribution to the ambience: rest- ful and tranquil, with a hint of mystery.

The estate possesses a number of barrel houses – there are, for instance, the older, linear structures, their walls and roofs worn smooth by time. For a long time, wine pro- duction played second fiddle at Tartuguière, pride of place having been given to mixed farming (principally wheat) and livestock. Wine began to develop as a business from around the 19th century, as evidenced by the vast winemaking facility built by Pierre- Edouard Seignouret, on which Albert Sei- gnouret had his initials engraved. The white walls and burgundy-coloured doors are in striking contrast to the house itself. Eventually, the winery buildings commissioned by the Castel family in the year 2000 took over from the courtyard structures. Inside, multi-coloured light from the stained glass windows tints the wooden barrels with various shades, while the stainless steel vats under their framework of metal are complemented by the rough stone walls of these former stables. It is a picture which epitomises the interaction of old traditions and modern technology found throughout the Château and its wines. Sources and bibliography

-2 E 2143 Mullet family archive (Archives Départementales de la Gironde). -3 E 25115 Sale Agreement between Mayer Franck and P-E. Seignou- ret, 9th February 1856, Me Pery (AD Gironde). -3 U 2275 folio 9 Auction Sale August/December 1821, between Dufour and Mayer Franck, Me Macaire (AD Gironde). - 3 E 35546 Sales Agreement between Dufour and Pélissier, 22nd June 1810, Me Macaire (AD Gironde). - Hypothèques Lesparre Transcript July/December 1806 volume 5, deed no. 100, folio 87, Me Duprat (AD Gironde). -2Mi 609 R 36 Table of Vendors/Purchasers Lesparre 1856 (AD Gironde). - 3 E 24169 Posthumous Deed of Inventory; Dufour, 28th March 1820, Me Mathieu (AD Gironde). -C 3622 Judiciary Service: Complaints against Belrieu, 1720 (AD Gironde). - 3 E 5063 Complaints made by tenant farmer Carbonneau against Belrieu and Balade, 1701, Me Dufau (AD Gironde). - 3 E 15242 folio 651 complaint by Pierre de Mullet against tenant farmer Pradel 30th January 1642, Me Lafite (AD Gironde). - 2 FI 1495 (6) Map by Belleyme (AD Gironde). - B trial record 921 Belrieu (AD Gironde). - B trial record 5247 Belrieu (AD Gironde). - Q 1221 sale of national assets Lesparre, D’Augeard (AD Gironde). - Marion and Benzacar, Sale of National Assets vol 1 (AD Gironde). - 8 J 46 Memoirs of Labat de Savignac (AD Gironde). - Henry Guillier, Illustrated wines of the Gironde, S. Lacher, Bordeaux-Libourne, 1886, BIB I/D 133 (AD Gironde). - La Chesnaye-Desbois and Badier, Dictionary of Nobility, Paris, BIB 4 L 1098 vol II (AD Gironde). - Ch. Cocks & E. Féret, Bordeaux and its Wines, 2nd edition 1868, 7th edition 1898, publ. Féret & fils (AD Gironde). - E. Féret, General Statistics of the Gironde, Paris, 1889 (AD Gironde). - René Pijassou, The Médoc: Quality in the Vineyard, Paris, 1980 (thesis dated 1978 Bdx III), BIB su 12 (106), (AD Gironde). - V. Lespy and P. Raymond, Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Béarnais, vol 1, publ. Gemme, 1980 (AD Gironde). - P. L Coÿne, Dictionary of Protestant Families in Bordeaux in the 17th Century, 1st instalment A and B, MF 827 (1), (AD Gironde). - Abbé Baurein, Variétés bordeloises, vol 2, Bdx, Publ. -Frères Labottière, 1784, BIB PF I/J 6 su 13 (1), (AD Gironde). - Albert Rèche, From Bordeaux to Louisiana in the 19th Century: François Seignouret, Société Archéologique de Bordeaux, 1983 (AD Gironde). - Dominique Letellier, Dovecotes of France, Privat, Toulouse, 1991, 728. 96 (44) LET, National School of Architecture and Landscaping, Bordeaux. - Hanjo Eifler, Pigeon Towers and Dovecotes, Sud-Images, La Brède, 1991, 728. 96 (44) EIF, ENSAP Bordeaux. - Property Title Deeds, Castel Family /Me Bugeaud 23rd July 1973. Acknowledgements Alain Castel, Xavier Renard, Michaël Thureau (Castel Group), Yannick Stock Gay (Winemaker of Château Tour Prignac), Christian Dubos (Archive Management, Archives Départementales de la Gironde), Marie-Hélène Maffre, Alain Beschi (Archive Stock Management, Conseil Régional d’Aquitaine), Philippe Maffre (Department of Historical Monuments, DRAC Aquitaine), Caroline Le Mao (Associate Professor, Dept of Modern History, Université Michel Montaigne Bordeaux III), Laurent Chavier (Art Historian), M. Henri Blanc (grandson of Albert-Emmanuel Seignouret) and his wife.