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THE PEREIRE BROTHERS

From 1844 to 1853, during the oidium crisis that raged in Bordeaux, Château Palmer was managed by the Caisse Hypothécaire de Paris (an agricultural mortgage corporation). In June 1853, the brothers Isaac and Emile Péreire, famous Second Empire bankers and rivals of the Rothschilds, bought Palmer for 413,000 francs, a very considerable amount at the time.

Like General Palmer, the Péreire brothers were exceptional people. Born in Bordeaux - Emile in 1800 and Isaac in 1806 - the Péreire brothers played a major role in modernising France during the Second Empire. They were powerful bankers, helping to build a new Paris according to Baron Haussmann's and Napoleon the Third's plans. The brothers also created a new seaside resort, Arcachon, not far from Bordeaux and increased their fortune by investing heavily in railroads. However, for Isaac and Emile Péreire, Château Palmer was the jewel of their possessions.

They set about investing in the estate from the year they bought it (1853). However, there was not enough time to bring Château Palmer up to first growth status in time for the famous 1855 classification. It was thus ranked a third growth, although Palmer is widely recognised as among the very greatest wines of Bordeaux.

Isaac and Emile Péreire continued to embellish their estate. They asked the Bordeaux architect Burguet to build the present château in 1856, taking the project begun by General Palmer to its logical conclusion. The Péreire brothers and their descendents battled oidium and phylloxera, survived the Franco-Prussian war, and made it through the First World War... Only the abysmal economic crisis of the 1930s forced them to sell the estate.