Petrus: Madame Edmond Loubat
Marie-Louise Garitey (1877 – 1961) was the eldest of three daughters born to Louis Garitey and Marie Chambaud, who were married on December 9th 1875. I have already described this family elsewhere, in my profile of Château Latour à Pomerol. She lived at the estate with her parents until, on January 24th 1899 she was wedded to Jean Loubat (born 1867). He was better known as Edmond, and was ten years her senior.
It is tempting to imagine that Edmond Loubat was descended from winemaking stock, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. Edmond’s great-grandfather Pierre Loubat originated from Monclar, south of Bergerac. He worked as a maître d’hôtel and also as a limonadier, nevertheless by 1869 he had moved to Libourne; those who came here looking for work, not just Pierre but many others such as Jean-Pierre Moueix and Antoine Audy usually ended up working in wine, often as négociants, later on sometimes as proprietors. Pierre had three children, including Jean Edouard Loubat, Edmond’s father; Jean Edouard seems to have dabbled in viticulture and the wine trade, although he also worked as a maître de, as did Edmond in his time. This longstanding connection between the Loubat family and the hotel trade explains the existence of the Hotel Loubat in the centre of Libourne, very near the railway station.
During the 1920s Madame Edmond Loubat began to acquire shares in Petrus, with the ultimate intention of becoming the majority shareholder and thereby gaining control of the domaine. The process was not a quick one though, as it was only rarely that the shares became available, but by the 1940s Madame Loubat’s stake in Petrus had grown, and she did indeed hold the majority. By this time Edmond had long died, and this was not an estate she was able to run single-handed. It was also about this time that she formed a business relationship with one of those young newcomers to the region already mentioned in order to manage her acquisition; the man in question was Jean-Pierre Moueix.
Please log in to continue reading: