Chateau Sentout

Château Sentout is a castle in Tabanac, in the department of Gironde in southwestern France.

It has been listed as a Monument historique since 1989.

It is now converted to gîtes but its history can be traced back to at least 1650 (as documented in Bordeaux's archives) when the owner was Monsieur Jean de Sentout. In 1740, the then owner, Baron de Gasq, Minister of Parliament for Bordeaux, sold the Château to Monsieur Jean Letellier, ship-chandler to the navy, who delivered his wine and merchandise from his residence at rue du Chai des Farines in Bordeaux to the docks. With the addition of Château Sentout, Monsieur Letellier's property covered over 3 square kilometres of woodland, fields and vineyards, some of which were situated at the "Bastide", now Bordeaux's right bank. Monsieur Letellier also had dealings with the so-called "Commerce Triangulaire" (Triangular Trade) trading between Europe, Africa and America. His descendants, B and R Letellier and later, the Laville de Lacombe family, owned the Château.

During the nineteenth century then, by marriage to Aline Laville de Lacombe, Monsieur Eugène Fichot, a hydrographical engineer to the navy and member of the French Academy of Sciences, became the owner of Sentout. Monsieur Fichot, amongst other achievements, plotted the map of the Indo-Chinese coastline. Château Sentout produced wine until its last official harvest of 1972.

There are two reasons for the vineyard's decline. Firstly, the wine business as a whole was badly hit after the Second World War affecting, in particular, the production of white wine. Secondly, the Fichot family used the Château as their summer residence only, spending the rest of the year in Paris. This meant that the estate gradually fell into a state of disrepair. In particular, the roofs, which required constant attention, began to leak, causing the beams to rot and eventually many roofs caved in. There had in fact been no serious repair work undertaken since 1864. Due to various French legal problems governing inheritance, the Château was eventually sold in 1973 by court order for only FF 170,000.

The new owners, Monsieur Gugnon and his son, had the intention of building houses on the estate. However, Tabanac's mayor, Monsieur Fabre, retired glass artist and engraver, despite suffering from silicosis, continuously opposed the project in order to preserve the Château's character. After seven years, Messieurs Gugnon sold the property to the Peltier family in 1980. Since then, the Peltiers have restored the estate carefully respecting its special character.

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Wikipedia