|
Gordon
Pirie, Château de Varennes (1850s)
Obscured
by trees and separated from the main road as you leave Savennières to the
east by an arm of the
Loire, the Château de Varennes is an impressive looking property; its origins
date back to the middle ages when it was a convent. It subsequently became
a seigneurie, belonging to the
Tillons, Tullayes, Rousseau de la Brosse and more recently, the Piries of
Scotland. Gordon Pirie, son of an
Aberdeen
paper merchant, married Valentine, the daughter of the Compte J. Rousseau
de la Brosse, in the 1850s, so bringing a strong Scottish association to
the region that was to last for over one hundred years. The Piries resided
in
Scotland
but used Varennes as their summer house, arriving with their entourage by
train, direct to Savennières station, to great local excitement. The
chateau came with its own vineyard, Le Clos de Varennes, and it was here
in 1880 that Pirie tried to treat is phylloxera affected vines with
sulphur, before eventually pulling them out and replanting on grafted
rootstock in 1893. Gordon Pirie died in 1901 and was succeeded by his
eldest son, Duncan, who restored the chateau following a fire in 1905.
Duncan Pirie OBE was a veteran of both the Boer and First World War. He
became a liberal politician and served in the Commons between 1896 and
1918. Stories of the late Colonel abound in the region. One, recounted at
second hand, was of François Roussier visiting the great man, just after
the end of the Second World War, to find him reading the poems of
Baudelaire to his dog. Another has him playing the bagpipes from the Château
roof.
Whilst
the legend of the Piries lives on, there is actually little known now
about the wines produced here during the Pirie era, except that the last
vintage here would have been in the mid 1960s. The 1963 vintage, we know,
was declassified to a simple Anjou Blanc. Jean Baumard bought land in the
Clos du Papillon from the family in 1968 and around the same time, Yves
Soulez took ownership of the Clos de Varennes. In the early 1990s, Soulez
offered his vines to Gaston Lenôtre, although after he went bankrupt five
years later, the bank reclaimed ownership. The Château itself was sold by
the Piries and after a period of neglect was redeveloped into a number of
apartments.
Back
to the list of Savennières producers
|