At the end of the 17th century, the famous “Father Labat” was the parish priest of the commune of Macouba. At that time, the house located on the banks of the Roche River was a sugar plantation.
In 1790, Antoine Leroux-Préville acquired it and gave it its current name, Fonds-Préville. In 1845, Antoine Leroux-Préville's daughters sold the property to Jean-Marie Martin, a merchant in Saint-Pierre and husband of Marie Ferment, daughter of a major plantation owner on the island.
Today, the Crassous de Médeuil heirs farm Martinique's three main crops: bananas (75 ha), pineapples (6 ha), and sugar cane (55 ha). It is the only farm to do so using crop rotation. The presence of these three crops and the JM distillery on the same farm is unique in Martinique and even in the Caribbean.
Since November 1996, Martinique's agricultural rums, including JM rums, have been awarded the Martinique Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC) designation. The Bellevue estate has 150 hectares of arable land, all of which is AOC terroir.
