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General Palmer, feeling it his duty to follow the advice of the Prince, rooted out his old vines, planted new ones, and tried all sorts of experiments, at an immense cost, but with little or no result. He and his agent, in consequence, got themselves into all sorts of difficulties, mortgaged the property, borrowed largely, and were at last obliged to have recourse to usurers, to life assurances, and every sort of expedient, to raise money … the accumulation of debt to the usurers became so heavy, that he was compelled to pass through the Insolvent Court.

There is an alternative version, partly based on Palmer’s obituary in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1851. After the war, Palmer lived primarily in England: in 1808, at the death of his father, he succeeded him as the mayor of Bath and as the local MP, a position he held, even during the war, from 1808 to 1826 and again from 1831 to 1837. He also inherited the proprietorship of the Theatre Royal, Bath. His estate in France, which he spared no expense to develop and improve, was managed by his régisseur, Jean Lagunegrand, whose salary was as high as that of any of his profession in the Médoc. Palmer concentrated on promoting his wine in England, taking advantage of his connections at court and his charm. Because of its increasingly high quality, “Palmer’s claret,” according to Gronow, was much sought after by London clubs, and was particularly appreciated by the Prince Regent. This makes sense, given that Palmer had been aide-de-camp to the Prince and later his crony even before the prince became King George IV, and joined him in his love of fine food and wine. (This relationship, however, does not preclude the prince’s having possibly told him that a bit more stomach in the wine would make it even better.) Even after the death of the King, Palmer spared no expense in providing himself and his friends with gastronomic feasts. This increasingly ruinous way of life was partly responsible for his reluctant decision to sell Château Palmer.

There was more to it than his desire for good dinners, of course. He had devoted much of his capital to developing Palmer, and it was now producing a great wine. But the high cost of running the estate was aggravated by economic difficulties in France as well as by the high duties, which damaged trade. His financial position declined alarmingly, and his wife left him; he lost his seat in Parliament. Things were brought to a head by a run of bad vintages, and in 1843 he sold Château Palmer. His death in 1851 prevented his seeing its inclusion in the 1855 Bordeaux classification. Unfortunately, the fact of Château Palmer being in receivership in 1855 and thus in the throes of reorganization was, according to Edmund Penning-Rowsell, probably responsible for its relegation to the second half of the troisième grand cru classification (the reorganization of Mouton-Rothschild in 1855 may also have been responsible for its listing as only a deuxième cru). It is arguable that its quality should have accorded it a position at the top of the deuxième crus, a position that many critics and wine lovers believe it deserves today. Its highly regarded quality was underlined by the fact that the new owners did not change the name.

Can the war on terroir be won?

ONLY IN THE MINDS of romantics and New Age pastoralists is Nature benign and in any way on our side. It may be a truism to remind ourselves that we are a part of nature, and that nature doesn’t give a fig for us; equally, it is at best euphemistic and at worst delusional to talk of “saving the earth.” The earth will shrug us off if we become too troublesome, and do perfectly well without us: what we mean, really, is saving our own sorry skins. Nobody knows this better than farmers, and few farmers know this better than the wine growers of Australia, where a combination of circumstances has threatened to halt, and even throw rapidly into reverse, the extraordinary way in which Australian wines have conquered the world over the last couple of de cades.