In 1705, the London Gazette offered the first sale of great Bordeaux wines : 230 barrels of 'Margoose'! The 1771 vintage was the first claret to appear in a Christie's catalogue. The English Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole was another example of the English élite's predilection for these clarets : he bought four casks of Margaux every three months, which he did not always pay for ! The renown of the 'first growths' spread across the Atlantic, and Thomas Jefferson, the United States ambassador to France, described the hierarchy already established among the best wines of Bordeaux, with Château Margau (sic!) in first position. He placed an order of Margaux 1784 of which he wrote, 'there cannot be a better bottle of Bordeaux'. It was at the beginning of the 18th century that the great wines of Bordeaux started their rise to fame, and an informal classification was established. This would not have been possible without the prior existence of the notion of a 'growth', i.e. a terroir, its wine, its château. Joseph de Fumel, the owner in the middle of the 18th century, planted 'select grape varieties' in his best plots. He realised that wines of quality could only be made on the gravel slopes found in the Médoc and at its greatest growths. The French Revolution brought this golden century for Bordeaux to an end, and Elie du Barry, the count of Hargicourt and lord of Margaux, was taken to the scaffold by the Jacobin terror. Château Margaux, its vines, woods, fields, mills, were all sold by the revolutionaries by auction as National Property.
