Château d’Yquem
The Passage of Lur-Saluces
ownership to the present day

The estate continued to be passed down through the generations of the Lur-Saluces family, coming next to their son, Romain Bertrand. Bertrand continued the development of Yquem, installing an impressive network of terracotta field drains in the 19th Century. With his death Chateau d’Yquem passed to his son, Amédée, and thence to the latter's nephew, Bertrand de Lur-Saluces.

Bertrand de Lur-Saluces steered Chateau d’Yquem through difficult times with great skill. After the Great War, when the buildings had served as a field hospital, he instituted chateau-bottling. Not one to let go, he finally passed the reins to his nephew, Comte Alexandre Lur-Saluces, in 1968. Bertrand died just two years later, proving that retirement really is bad for you!

Perhaps one of Chateau d’Yquem’s greatest crises, however, came at the end of the 20th Century, when the Lur-Saluces finally lost control of the estate. The method was not overtly feudal as in ancient times, but it was unwelcomed by the Lur-Saluces family.

The luxury goods group LVMH gained a majority among the shareholders, although all did not seem lost. Comte Alexandre was allowed to stay on, so a Lur-Saluces still held the reins at d’Yquem. But this was not for long; in 2004 Alexandre entered retirement and Pierre Lurton, President Director Generale at Chateau Cheval-Blanc took over. And so ended an impressive tenure for the Lur-Saluces family, as sole caretakers of this great family-owned Bordeaux estate.

Lurton obviously wasn’t going to take a back seat; one of his first actions was to command the release of the 1999 vintage at what might be considered a bargain price, an action that preceded the release of the much heralded 2001 vintage, rich in both quality and Parker points, at over £2,000 per case, the most expensive Yquem ever.

The intricate viticultural and vinification process remains as dedicated as ever with some great vintages being produced especially in 2005. Lurton has also brought the release of Chateau d’Yquem into line with much of the rest of Bordeaux, putting subsequent vintages onto the market with the rest of the Sauternes properties during the en-primeur scramble.