< The WineGeese Stories

Particulary active in this hazardous trade was the House of Barton & Guestier, a business founded by Thomas Barton from Co. Fermanagh in 1725.

Hero of many of these dangerous escapades was Daniel Guestier, master of Le Grand Nancy, a vessel specially built to evade the blockades mounted by the English Navy along the western seaboard of France.

Le Grand Nancy was named after Daniel Guestier's daughter Nancy, who married Edouard Lawton, a member of one of Bordeaux's most distinguished wine families.

It is quite remarkable how many of Daniel Guestier's family married into Irish families settled in Bordeaux. His daughter Elizabeth married Bernard Phelan, while his son married Anna Johnston. His brother, Pierre-François, married Jane Hoey of Dublin, and his niece Corinne Guestier married John Exshaw from Dublin, who founded the famous firm of Exshaw Cognac.

Under battle conditions where water was easily contaminated and could not be sterilized for drinking purposes, wine formed an essential item in an army's commissariat. While it was necessary from the point of view of the health of the troops, the sense of well-being induced by wine bolstered the soldiers'  fighting spirit, a fact fully appreciated by General George Washington during the American War of Independence.

To support Washington's military requirements of wine, huge quantities were surreptitiously shipped from Bordeaux to the rebel forces.

Grandson of Thomas Barton, founder of Barton & Guestier, Hugh Barton consolidated the family fortune. When he had to flee France during the revolution, he returned to his home country, Ireland. Having acquired Château Langoa in 1821, Hugh Barton bought part of Château Léoville in 1826 and called it Léoville Barton.