"Il y a des globules blancs, il y a des globules rouges, cela me semble évident qu'il y ait des globules rosés !"
Jean Carmet
How could I sum up the 500-year-history of a wine-making family in a few words? Where should I start?
It would take an entire book, maybe a novel, to tell you about five centuries of characters, events, tales, evolution, bright days and hardships. We have been winemakers from father to son since 1508, in the same old village, nestled in the Loire valley; Chargé.
This is where our ancestors, our parents, have chosen the right vine for the right plot of land and have discovered the best way to grow the grapes. We pass down the secrets of each parcel of vine from one generation to the next: why we choose this vine over that one on a particular plot, why there was and will never be a vine on that side of the vineyard, etc.
No need to write, it's through oral tradition that we learn about the vineyard, about winemaking, through stories that we perpetuate our family’s tradition.
Over centuries, our estate has grown and our vineyard now stretches out over an area of 75 hectares. Such a large area proves our success and great renown and, above all, is a reward for our hard work.
But inheriting a vineyard is nothing unless you inherit the skills and savoir faire along with it. If you don't know the right way to go about it, if you don't master the art of assembling, you can't do anything with your vineyard because you need to understand the way the different plots of land, the different soils influence the grapes.
Therefore, there is an art of winemaking, of converting the grapes into the most incredible beverage in order not to lose what nature and the work of the wine growers have given us.
The art of winemaking also requires evolving and adapting to new tastes by listening to the tasters without imposing our choices on them.
Our job is our passion. We have inherited it, let's pass it down.