The early days

The estate's history has largely been peaceful but has often been marked by war, confrontation and subsequent peace agreements, and is inextricably bound up with the history of the Baux de Provence Valley, in which it is unquestionably one of the most outstanding sites.p>

The first pages in the history of Estoublon were written in the Middle Ages. During this period, the property, then known as Le Grand Mas, belonged to the Lord of Mont Paon, while the château and farms were controlled by the family of the Counts of Baux.

In 1426, upon the death of Countess Alix, Queen Yolanda of Aragon, widow of Louis II of Provence, decided to lay siege to the citadel. The land belonging to the Baux family, an independent territory for more than five centuries, and proud symbol of free feudal Provence, resisted for more than four months before surrendering. The whole Baux territory, including the properties belonging to the Mont Paon Estate, was annexed to the County of Provence as adjacent lands.

Sixty years later, on 31 August 1489, Le Grand Mas was bought by Barthélemy Grille, known as Simon de Grille, who came from a line of very wealthy Genovese merchants, and had himself been consul of Arles three times. The small estate would soon experience the bloodiest period in its history.

In 1561, the buildings were razed to the ground by Protestant troops who seized the Baux family's land. The Estate and the Château de Mont Paon then became the lair of a band of rebels loyal to the redoubtable Adventurer Saint Roman.

The band's resistance was not crushed until 1595, after a long siege. The people of Les Baux subsequently decided to completely destroy the fortress.

The lair of Saint Roman

The fiefdom of Estoublon

The reconstruction of Le Grand Mas was completed at the end of the 17th century, from which the present-day architecture of the façade and the layout of the main residence survive. Some years later, the Château de Mont Paon was renamed "Château d’Estoublon" in memory of the fiefdom of Estoublon in the Basses Alpes (Haute Provence), sold by the Grille family in the 18th century.

In 1900, Le Grand Mas, now the Château d’Estoublon, passed into the hands of a Parisian antiques dealer, who sold it on several years later having emptied it of its furniture and panelling. The new owner, a shepherd by all accounts, did not keep the estate for long, thinking it too vast for his personal use.

In 1932, he sold it to the Lombrage family, who devoted themselves to restoring the olive groves, later decimated by the big freeze of 1956.

In December 1998, when the Château d’Estoublon was bought by the Schneider family, a new page in its history was written. The estate looked to new horizons with the implementation of an agreement to organically farm vines and olive trees and a plan to redevelop the vineyards and wine storehouses, and to renovate the château, the results of which would be seen three years later...

Estate management duties were handed to Valérie, the third and youngest child of Ernest Schneider, and her husband Rémy Reboul.

Present & future