Moueix family divests 20% Petrus share
The Bordeaux Rumour mill went into overdrive in September after French magazine La Revue du Vin de France reported that the moueix family, owners of Château Petrus, had sold a 20% stake in the Pomerol powerhouse.
Financial newspaper Les Echos named the buyer as Alejandro Santo Domingo, a Colombian-American financier and philanthropist ranked at 499 on Forbes’ The World’s Billionaires list in 2018 and carrying a personal fortune of US$4.3 billion (at time of going to press).
Santo Domingo is on the board of New York’s metropolitan museum of Art and is married to Lady Charlotte Wellesley, daughter of the 9th Duke of Wellington. his family are also shareholders at Budweiser brewing giant Anheuser-Busch In Bev.
The paper quoted Jean moueix as saying that the deal had been done to help secure the long-term future of the fabled Bordeaux estate.
Neither the estate nor moueix was available for further comment directly after the news broke, yet several courtiers and well-placed individuals in Bordeaux told Decanter that they believed the sale had taken place up to 12 months ago.
The deal valued Petrus, along with its 11.7ha of prized vineyards, at €1 billion, according to Les Echos. If true, that would easily make it the most expensive vineyard transaction on record.
Alexander hall, a winery real estate specialist with Vineyard Intelligence in Bordeaux, told Decanter that a deal like this could not be viewed in the context of normal guidelines for vineyard land prices.
‘This is not a per-hectare price, it’s a Petrus price,’ he said. ‘There are two estates in France that could be valued like this – Domaine de la Romanée Conti and Château Petrus.’