Winemaker Wednesday: Domaine Vacheron
Tell us about your property (how long it has been in your family, how long you have been making wine there, the size, any growing philosophy you might have):
The period after the phylloxera of 1886 was difficult for winemakers and growers. The vines were no longer productive and many people in Sancerre left for other places and other work. At the time, our family were carters. They owned twenty horses and transported wood, sand and agricultural materials. Quite naturally, the wine growers gave their land to those who could cultivate it in order to avoid taxes. However, in the early 20th century another epidemic decimated the horses and the people of Sancerre had to pool resources to buy a horse before they could work the vines. So many vignerons went to work on large farms in the area to make a little money and others made ends meet by mixed farming, raising livestock and off jobs.
The vines were gradually replanted and grafted in the years after the first world war (which took our grandfather Maurice Vacheron out of the region for seven years) and even more after the second world war. Our family vineyards were created by Maurice Vacheron at the beginning of the 1900s with a little more than one hectare. His son Jean enlarged it by three more hectares. In 1962, Jean became president of the Sancerre appellation. His passion for the great wines of Burgundy inspired him to explore the potential for Pinot Noir in Sancerre.
The vineyards didn’t fully recover until the 1950 and it was only in the 1960s that anyone could make a living exclusively from growing grapes. Jean remembers when he and his wife Renée kept 60 goats on the hillsides such of « Les Romains » and in the place that is now their cellar. Since 1965, their two sons, Jean-Louis and Denis, have developed the vineyards, taking care to select the best terroirs to produce both red and white Sancerre. In the late 1980s Jean-Denis Vacheron was the first of Jean-Louis’s children to return to the 30 hectares of Domaine Vacheron. His first project was to place the parcel known as La Belle Dame. In 1993, his brother Jean-Dominique joined the rest of the family and helped to produce the first Belle Dame wines in 1995.
In 1996, Jean-Denis Vacheron and his wife left the Sancerre region to make wine on their family property in Chateauneuf du Pape. Jean Louis, Denis and Jean-Dominique continued to work the thirty-four hectares of vines. In 1997, they unveiled their cuvée “les Romains (from a vineyard of the same name), which shows the qualities of flint soils. In 2002, Denis’ son Jean-Laurent, who had been working abroad as an enologist, rejoined the family business. Domaine Vacheron now consists of 47 hectares in Sancerre. Half of them are on flint soild and half on limestone. The average age of our vines is twenty years for Sauvignon Blanc and thirty years for Pinot Noir. The oldest are from the 1960s. Our “Belle Dame” and “Romains” wines are entirely from flint soils.The “Belle Dame” vines were planted in 1990 and benefit from a south-east exposure. The wines demonstrate the aging potential of Red Sancerre. The “Romains” vines were planted in 1970 in the sunniest part of the appellation where Sauvignon Blanc shows the complexity of wine grown on flint soils.
If we cannot grow any larger, the new generation is concentrating on ever better quality that results from painstaking attention to the details of biodynamic methods. In 2010, our Sancerre wines obtained certification that allows us to market them as biodynamic in the U.S. We like to remember that this whole story started with one horse and some land that was given to us.
When you are not drinking your own wines, what are you drinking? What other wines, beers, etc. do you enjoy?
Dujac, Lafon, Kientsler, Graillot, Jamet, Clos du Cailloux, Rayas, Ramonet, Ogier, Calera.
What is your favorite food and what wine would you pair it with?
Pasta with truffles and a Vacheron Sancerre Blanc 1996 or Thallabert 1978.
