Domaine de la Cotelleraie

The passion of the vineyard and wine …
… I fell in when I was little, as they say. My father Claude Vallée, who started working at age 14, gave me the virus of work well done and a know-how that I will try to pass on to my children if they wish. While in 1957  the farm had 6 ha of vineyards as well as asparagus and fruit trees, today it is represented by 27 hectares of vines.

Conscious of having inherited a domain whose cabernet franc vines are planted on the best terroirs of Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil, I decided in 1999 to set up a philosophy of organic farming as the respect of the plant, soil and the environment seemed to me to be a work requirement.

To make quality wines, it is not enough to have technical knowledge, you must also have sensitivity, listen to the plant, let him take back his natural rights and enjoy a balanced ecosystem with a real microbial life in the grounds. Wine is a living material that is made primarily around the vine throughout the year. That’s why, my team and I have put in place a rigorous working pace of plowing, decavaillonnage, hoeing and treatment with sulfur or copper from the spring to avoid the use of chemical weed killers , fertilizers and other pesticides. The realization of such work can only be envisaged with a team united and aware of the merits of such an approach.

Finally, it seemed obvious to us to concretize this hard work of a whole year by the resumption of manual harvesting and in 2009 by the application for labeling with Ecocert.

In addition to respecting our environment, the objective of this organic culture is to create quality wines, great cabernets that reflect their terroir, frank wines, fresh, fruity, elegant and endowed with a beautiful material. Every year keeps us in suspense because, from one year to another, from one vintage to another, the vine will not respond in the same way. And that is making wine …