Maison Descaves

The house

Jeanne Nadal was born at Bergerac in 1902, the only child of a mill worker. In 1921 she married Jean Descaves, and that year the couple bought a Bordeaux merchant house, the firm of Fernand Richon. She went to work in it at once, when a woman in the Bordeaux wine trade was a rarity.

From 1925 she ran the house, and she never stopped. She took it out of bulk wine and into the château-bottled wines of the great growths, and her stock made its name: over more than 50 years she built a cellar of old and rare Bordeaux. On Christmas Eve 1999 she was at the office until 4 in the afternoon, opened a bottle of Champagne and drank to each of her staff. She died in her sleep on Christmas Day, in the apartment above the office, at 97.

In May 2000 Champagne Louis Roederer bought 55% of the house and Jean-François Moueix’s Groupe Duclot the other 45%. They have kept its independence, and it is a subsidiary of Roederer. In January 2001 the company, then named Société Maison Jean Descaves, filed its names as trademarks: Maison Jean Descaves, Maison Descaves and Descaves. The house works from the allées de Chartres, in the Chartrons, with Stanislas Delavelle at its head and Frédéric Marsan in charge of sales in France. Her cellar is kept to this day: the house lists more than 7,500 references of grands crus across 97 vintages, the oldest of them 1875.

At a glance

Kind

Négociant

Based in

Bordeaux, allées de Chartres

Founded

Bought by Jean and Jeanne Descaves in 1921, as the firm of Fernand Richon

Owner

Champagne Louis Roederer, 55%, and Groupe Duclot, 45%, since May 2000

Direction

Stanislas Delavelle

Records

Grands crus in stock across 97 vintages, from 1875