AS TIME GOES BY
THE CAZES FAMILY
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the inhabitants of the upper Ariege valleys, peasants living rough and austere lives, often chose to migrate to milder regions. John (“Lou Janou”) Cazes was thus one of many “Montagnols” who were hired in the Médoc around 1870. Lou Janou and his wife Angélique settled in the village of Saint-Lambert, a few steps from the Château Pichon-Longueville. It was here that Jean-Charles Cazes, the couple’s second son, was born in 1877. A sister, Marie, completed the family and later married the cellar master of the Château Ormes de Pez in Saint Estèphe.
Initially apprenticed as a baker in Pauillac, Jean-Charles Cazes married his employer’s daughter. Four boys were born into the family. Among them, André, the youngest, would hold an important place in the history of Lynch-Bages.
Leaving in 1914 for the “Great War”, and returning with the rank of Captain, Jean-Charles resumed his profession in 1918. The total destruction of the bakery in a fire in 1924 and his ability for figures led him to work in a local bank. As a bank clerk, he met many winemakers in a period marked by the Depression of the 30s.
In 1933, the owner of Château Lynch-Bages, General Félix de Vial, offered him a lease agreement on the vineyard. Times were hard and tending the vineyard was of critical importance to maintaining production. Taking the Domaine well in hand before the 1933 harvest, he was able to purchase the property for good in 1939.
Thanks to his skill as a winemaker, Jean-Charles Cazes decisively influenced the wine of Lynch-Bages: harvested late, ripe and powerful, it distinguished itself by the 1950s, when its quality came to be recognised by the Trade and particularly by one of the prominent wine ambassadors in the world, Alexis Lichine. This is when the now widespread idea first came to the fore, that Lynch-Bages far outperforms its 1855 official classification as a Cinquième Cru.
André, after several years of practicing law and training in insurance, was drawn into the turmoil of the Second World War. Taken prisoner in 1940, he spent five years in a camp in Silesia. During this time, his father ran the Domaine by himself. The year 1945, which saw the Allied victory and André’s return home, was a magnificent vintage. While Jean-Charles continued to handle the properties, André developed an insurance business. At the same time, he entered the municipal council of Pauillac in 1947 and was elected mayor in 1951, and then General Counsel of the Gironde. He held these two mandates for forty-two years until 1993.
In the early 60s, André progressively took up the reins of the property. The harvests of 1963, 1965 and 1968 were very difficult years. Around 1970, technological advances and the opening of new markets, including the United States, gradually presented new horizons. André Cazes, despite the crisis, moved forward with the purchase of the adjoining properties of Haut-Bages Averous and Saussus. He also recultivated the lands abandoned during the phylloxera crisis. These decisions would subsequently prove very shrewd when the market rebounded at the end of the decade. In a few years’ time, André Cazes had restored and expanded the vineyard, which reached nearly 100 hectares by the late 1990s.
Jean-Michel, who had become an engineer in Paris, rejoined André Cazes in 1973. He settled in Pauillac in 1975 and undertook the work needed to modernise Lynch-Bages, which would be done in stages. Installing a modern fermenting room, insulating the buildings, developing new technologies and equipment, building storage cellars, restoring the loading areas and wine storehouses... the work would go on for fifteen years. An especially successful Fête de la Fleur in June 1989 would mark the inauguration of the new facilities.
In 1990, the vineyard grew by some 5 hectares planted with white grape varieties. “Blanc de Lynch-Bages” was born.
Beginning in 1987, Jean-Michel Cazes helped the insurance company AXA to build a portfolio of quality vineyards, which extended to Bordeaux and abroad, to Portugal and Hungary. From 2001, the two groups separated and the family company pursued its development in Languedoc, at Châteauneuf du Pape, as well as Australia and Portugal.
Since 2006, a new generation, represented by Sylvie Cazes and Jean-Charles Cazes, has taken over the management of the family company.