Eschenauer

The house

Louis Eschenauer came to Bordeaux from Alsace and set up as a wine merchant in 1821. From 1839 to 1858 Rothschild Frères, the Paris bank, kept up a correspondence with the house. On November 27, 1858 Eschenauer, of 24 quai des Chartrons, and Benecke et Compagnie filed for a 15-year patent on a way to melt and bleach beef tallow in a single operation. By the 1860s his house was buying Lafite, and Charles Cocks and Édouard Féret, whose Bordeaux et ses vins was the reference book of the Bordeaux trade, record the deals. The 1864 crop of Château Lafite went en primeur (sold as futures, while the wine is still in barrel) to Clossmann and Eschenauer, and Eschenauer was again among the houses that bought the crop of 1865. In 1875 an Eschenauer bought Château Camponac, at Pessac.

From 1906 Louis Eschenauer held the monopoly of the white wines of Château Olivier, at Léognan, and from 1914 of its reds, which made him the sole seller of its wine. Eschenauer et Cie held the monopoly of the 1907 vintage of Château Ferrière, in Margaux. A book on the classed growths of the Médoc printed in London in 1920 has the house buying Mouton d’Armailhacq, today Château d’Armailhac, in 1893, 1902 and 1904. From 1907 to 1916 it shared the Château Margaux crops with Schröder et Schÿler and Journu Frères, Kappelhoff et Cie. It bought Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande in 1912, 1914 and 1917 and Marquis d’Alesme-Becker in 1916, and shared the Lafite vintages of 1917, 1918 and 1919 with other houses.

In 1958 the house bought Château Smith Haut Lafitte, at Martillac; Florence and Daniel Cathiard bought the estate in 1990. Louis Eschenauer, the house of the merchant who came from Alsace in 1821, is today part of Crus et Domaines de France, the Bordeaux company of Les Grands Chais de France.

At a glance

Kind

House of the past

Based in

Bordeaux

Founded

1821, by Louis Eschenauer

Châteaux

Camponac, from 1875; Smith Haut Lafitte, from 1958

In the record

Lafite 1864, 1865 and 1917 to 1919; Mouton d’Armailhacq 1893, 1902 and 1904; Olivier from 1906; Ferrière 1907; Margaux 1907 to 1916; Pichon Comtesse 1912, 1914 and 1917; Marquis d’Alesme-Becker 1916

Today

A house of Crus et Domaines de France, of Les Grands Chais de France