Thomas Barton (Bordeaux merchant)

Thomas Barton (1695-1780) was an Irish-born merchant who established himself in the wine trade at Bordeaux and became a spokesman for the “British factory”, as the city’s anglophone négociants were known. He amassed a considerable fortune, much of which he invested in landed estate in Ireland, and founded the family that for several generations controlled the Barton & Guestier wine brand and continues to own two of the grand cru vineyards of the Médoc.