En un regard
Le château en bref
The Château de la Dragonne, in Béziers (Hérault), succeeded a 17th-century farmstead belonging to the Abbaye royale du Saint-Esprit, which was converted into a farming estate by Jean Antoine Vialles between 1681 and 1712. Passing through several families (Brun, Courtial, Farret, Pastré, Fusier), the estate became the property of Gabriel Fayet from 1864 onwards, who turned it into a purely wine-producing estate and had a neoclassical château built by the architect Antoine-Louis Dusfour, its façade adorned with a segmental pediment and flanked by two canted towers topped with pavilion roofs. His son Gustave Fayet modernised the winemaking facilities between 1899 and 1923, with presses, reinforced-concrete vats and, between 1904 and 1905, an alcohol store and a distillery with a capacity of 12,000 hectolitres. The estate remained in the Fayet family's hands during the 20th century.