Vieux Château Certan: History
Being négociants and landowners of presumably some wealth and standing it is perhaps not surprising that the Demay de Certan family lost possession of the Certan estate during the French Revolution. The property was at least in part confiscated as a bien national, but they were able to retake possession after the revolutionary fervour had passed. Nevertheless it seems they never regained their previous status, perhaps because those wealthy nobles that survived the Revolution now lived under a regime of heavy taxation. The family held onto the estate for a little over half a century more, but ultimately they sold most of the property in 1858 to Charles de Bousquet, a banker from Paris. Bousquet renamed his rather grand acquisition Vieux Château Certan, and this sale was thus the origin of the estate profiled here. The 5-hectare corner of vineyard retained by the Demay de Certan family was called, rather logically, Petit-Certan, and it is this smaller section of the original Certan vineyard that became Château Certan de May.
Ten years after Charles de Bousquet made his purchase, Vieux Château Certan was rated top in the 1868 edition of Cocks et Féret, ahead of both Château Trotanoy and Petrus, which were ranked second and third respectively. The production at this time was 20 to 30 tonneaux (80 to 120 modern-day barrels) per annum. The tenure of Charles de Bousquet seems to have been a very successful one, the 1874 Cocks et Féret showing the production was maintained at an average 25 tonneaux per annum, and the same was recorded in 1886. At this latter date the property had 11 hectares of vines, which were said by the author to be planted in 30 centimetre-deep soils of gravel, over a subsoil of ferruginous clay. Prices were favourable, and the estate continued to be ranked above Château Trotanoy and Petrus, the author praising the finesse and bouquet exhibited by the wines.
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