Pioneers

Christian

Born in the region, he first travelled a lot, exported vine plants, volunteered to Senegal for his technical cooperation and acted as president of a young company in Languedoc Roussillon. But his growing passion for wine took him back to university and when he turned 30, he graduated in oenology. Christian made wine in Spain, managed a domain in Provence and successively managed some of French wine industry regional inter branch organizations. In 1997, he took the great leap forwards and bought a farm which never grow any vine. Located near to his birth place, on this former island in the middle of Poitevin marshland, he decided to create La Chaume vineyard from scratches.
Passionate by lyric art, he considers wine making as a full-fledged cultural discipline. Throught wine making, he cultivates and expresses poetical and emotional connections between those two types of art.

Estelle

Born in East of France, she graduated in hairdressing, so a priori nothing predisposed Estelle to deal with vine. Nevertheless she completely devoted herself with passion to this project. With two young kids, she did not hesitate to go back to school to learn more about winegrowing-oenology. Therefore, she followed with courage and a mother caring eye the evolution of this growing up young vineyard.

Key steps

1997 : purchase of La Chaume, a 45ha farm including about 20ha farmable into vineyard
1998, 1999 : first 6 ha plated
2000 : first harvest in La Chaume
2003 : 11 ha planted, wine making with the very first harvest
2004 : very first bottled sold
2005 : 14 ha planted, 20 000 bottles sold, awarded Loire young talent trophy by RVF
2006-2011 : 35 000 bottles sold. Many rewards on press and wine guides. Organic conversion of the vineyard. Progressive rehabilitation of un planted soil into natural pasture. More than 150 trees planted
2012 : creation of a buried wine warehouse, storage and wine making facilities to be doubled. First notes in parker guide. 25% of production exported