In this episode of The Wine Beat, we take you to the heart of the Chinon wine region in the Loire Valley. Our hosts are Anne-Charlotte Genet and Kevin Fontaine. Anne-Charlotte helps manage the family estate and heads their international marketing and Kevin is the domaine’s lead viticulturist and winemaker. Together, they’ll share the fascinating story of the domaine’s long legacy, their commitment to sustainability, and the passion driving their exceptional wines.
The domaine had its origins in the 1950’s when Charles Joguet, then a young artist building a career in Paris, came home to Chinon after his father’s death. He began to spend time tending the vineyards and focussing the farm’s activities more on winemaking. Inevitably making wine became a passion that ruled his life as much as his passion for making art. As a lover of Burgundy wines Charles realized the potential of each of his vineyard plots or “clos” around the village of Sazilly to express its own unique terroir. He became a pioneer of single vineyard wines in Chinon.
In the 1980’s Charles formed an alliance with the Genet family. The match was perfect. Jacques and Marie-Francoise Genet helped build the business side of the domaine as Charles passed along to them his knowledge of viticulture and winemaking.
Passion for Sustainability and Integration of the Whole
By the late 1990’s Charles transferred the balance of his interest in the domaine to Jacques and Marie-Francoise. Over time the younger generation of the Genet family grew into management at the estate. Anne-Charlotte studied wine management and marketing at the OIV. In 2006 she was joined by the young viticulturist and winemaker Kevin Fontaine who brought his own winemaking experience, including time in South Africa and New Zealand. Together they began to craft a new, forward looking vision for the Domaine.
Anne-Charlotte and Kevin brought a deep passion for treating the estate as an integrated ecosystem – where the entire viticultural and winemaking team would feel ownership for the wines, the vineyards would be husbanded with organic practices and the flora and fauna around the vineyards would play their part. People, vines, soils, bugs, forests, birds and animals.
