The Marital Margaux: d’Issan 1945-2015

 BY NEAL MARTIN | JULY 24, 2018

Who doesn’t love a good wedding? Mothers-in-law locking horns over floral arrangements and whether or not “drunk” Uncle Raymond should be on the wedding list. The stag party that ended in a police caution. The hen party that witnessed Jägerbomb-fuelled banshees running amok on a rain swept esplanade brandishing giant inflatable willies. Blushing bride walking down the aisle whilst the groom fidgets nervously at the altar; bride’s father dabbing away a tear at the thought of his beloved marrying this buffoon. The solemnity of exchanged vows, you stifling giggles having spotted three-year old Timothy picking his nose (flush-faced Uncle Raymond doing likewise in the pew behind.) The pomp of the wedding march. The confetti still stuck in your hair days later. Speeches: too long, too dull, too unfunny or so shocking that Aunty Vera never looks you straight in the eye again. The leaning tower of wedding-cake. Tacky disco! Dance-floor swarming with dads demonstrating their moves in front of impressionable children wondering why these men are making synchronized pelvic thrusts to Taylor Swift (with Taylor Swift in their minds.) Uncle Raymond passed out under the buffet surrounded by a detritus of half-eaten chicken wings. The unspoken hope that the newly-weds’ life savings squandered on their honeymoon means they are too broke to divorce twelve months later.

Henry, Duke of Normandy and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, depicted above, in the 14th century

This writer was never invited to the nuptials of Henry, Duke of Normandy and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, as depicted above, in the 14th century. Inconveniently, I was born a few centuries too late. Even if I were, I doubt a common rake like myself would have been invited to a royal wedding that united England and France with profound ramifications for Bordeaux and Europe, like a reverse-Brexit, but with less bloodshed. However, I like to think that their ceremony back on 18 May, 1152 was not too dissimilar to the one described. For certain I would have approved of the wine served at their reception before the lute quartet struck up “Come On Eileen”. That is because instead of pouring some fermented 16.5% “paint-stripper” discounted at the local cash ‘n carry, guests would have toasted the nuptials to a wine known as La Motte Cantenac.

You know it as Château d’Issan. 

Amazingly, some 866 years later, visitors can still tour the château and imbibe the wine that Henry and Eleanor purportedly drank on their wedding day. D’Issan celebrates the occasion every three years and last May, on the eve of another royal wedding uniting England and the United States, I attended a dinner at the Palace of Westminster to raise a toast to Henry and Eleanor, accompanied by some large format bottles of d’Issan. But this article really focuses upon a comprehensive vertical that I undertook with Emmanuel Cruse a few weeks earlier that spanned the entire postwar period. First, let’s colour in the châteaux’s history, because it goes back a very long way. 

Château d’Issan, with its drawbridge and moat, is one of the most evocative châteaux in Bordeaux

History

If you want to visit a fully functioning castle replete with drawbridge and moat, alas without any crocodiles (as far as I know) then head to Château d’Issan in Margaux. Unlike other châteaux, the facade of d’Issan does not gaze upon passers-by driving up the D2 artery. Instead, d’Issan nestles out of sight behind its ancient perimeter wall so that many visitors ignorantly zoom past one of the most aesthetically pleasing properties on the Left Bank. The interior reeks of history from its antique furniture to the heavy drapes, silver candelabra, framed sepia-tinged photographs of the Cruse family upon mahogany tables. The walls of the main stairwell are decorated with coats of arms, an array of animal skulls and a veritable herd of stuffed deers’ heads that together imbue d’Issan a gothic atmosphere. I would not believe you if you told me d’Issan is not haunted.

Château d’Issan is one of the most ancient estates in Bordeaux, and traces its history all the way back to the 12th century. Hosting the nuptials of the future King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152 meant that d’Issan entered the lucrative wedding venue market early. At that time this maison noble was known as “La Mothe-Cantenac” and later “Théobon Manor”. It passed through the hands of several families including the all-powerful Ségurs before five generations of the Essenault family commenced their tenure in 1575, a period when heiress Marguerite de Lelanne married a Bordeaux parliamentarian, Pierre d’Issenhault. Renaming the estate “Issan”, they tore down the manor house and constructed the present château and chiseled their motto above the main arched entrance: “Regum Mensis Arisque Deorum” - “For the table of kings and the altars of the gods.” In 1644 the vineyard was surrounded by a stone wall to create one of the Left Bank’s few genuine clos. [There are three others in Bordeaux, one in each appellation. Answers at the bottom of this article.] The Issenault family’s proprietorship came to an end in 1760 when the property was sold to the Castelnaus and subsequently divided between Castelnau and the Foix de Candale family, the former owning the land and the latter the château building. The Candales eponymously renamed the estate, ergo for a period of time maps show it as “Château de Candale”, the title Thomas Jefferson refers to in his list of Third Growths in a letter written in 1787.