Leading Bordeaux estate Château Fourcas Hosten has been sold to two members of the Hermès luxury-goods family.
Peter M F Sichel, a New Yorker, a principal shareholder and co-managing director, finalised the sale on Friday.
He declined to give the sale price, and told decanter.com, ‘I am now out of the wine business, though I will continue to do mergers and acquisitions.’
The new owners are brothers Laurent and Renaud Mommeja. ‘This is not a Hermès company investment but an investment made by the two brothers privately,’ Sichel said. Fourcas Hosten represents their first venture in the wine business.
Sichel said, ‘Due to the Bordeaux crisis, we have not made any profits in the last two years, and I believe it will take some time for the Bordeaux market to sort itself out for us to again make as good a profit as we did up to 2002.’
Fourcas Hosten’s harvest was to begin today. Renaud Mommeja will run the property. The owners are retaining Patrice Pages, co-managing director, who will continue to supervise the vineyards and winemaking.
A Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, Fourcas Hosten was founded in 1810. The vines consist of about 45% cabernet sauvignon, 45% merlot and 10% cabernet franc.
About 22,000 cases of the first wine are made annually. Around 5,000 cases of a second wine, Les Cèdres d’Hosten, are made.
The property consists of a small château in a park in Listrac, where the vineyard soil is clay and limestone, and a gravel plot in Fourcas, a nearby hamlet.
Five Sichels remain in the wine business. Maison Sichel, a family-owned négociant business in Bordeaux since 1883, owns Château d’Angludet and is a significant shareholder in Château Palmer.
Written by Howard G Goldberg in New York
