THE WORD OF VINCENT


Dear Customers, internet users and wine enthusiasts,

Please read these few words of introduction to Chateau Gaillard, explaining who we are and to our way of producing wine.

THE PYRAMID OF WINE : 

To me the world of wine producing can be compared to a pyramid : a pyramid with four distinct levels but each interacting with each other: Firstly the base level : the land, the soil, the Mother Earth, the terror, as without a good soil you can never produce a good wine.
Next level up the climate, here in the Loire Valley we are very fortunate in having an excellent microclimate very much suited to our type of wine production.
Followed by the ideal range of grape types: one or more for each soil type, each variety suiting different circumstances: Gamay, Cabernet, Chenin etc.
Finally the wine producer himself, the creator, the architect of his or her own wine Each of these four factors are important in themselves but cannot act on their own; it is the combination of all four which leads to the magic of a great wine!

A FAMILY OF WINE GROWER :

My family has been working in vineyards producing wines since 1854. 150 years tending the vines, producing fine wines, involved in selling wines and even the cooperage.
The family genes are impregnated by tastes, savours, but also ancestral gestures, skills, knowledge...
In 1971 my parents closed their wine trade business to devote themselves fully to their 10 hectares property named the Clos de la Briderie growing vines on a clay-limestone terrain.

As for me, financially helped by my parents, I returned to Mesland in 1978 buying up the original 14 hectares of what was to become Chateau Gaillard. I was only 18 years old young and strong enough to tear out all of the vines on the property: they were either too old, too various, not aligned or having suffered from neglect over the years before I purchased the land.
However I wisely kept 8 hectares of «Vieilles Vignes» of the Gamay variety which helped me to win the Gold Medal for red Touraine-Mesland at the national Agricultural Show in Paris!

THE WINEYARD OF CHATEAU GAILLARD :

I finished my oenological and wine studies before definitively returning to live Château Gaillard in 1982. The field of Chateau Gaillard is located on sands of Miocene, where Gamay excels in red with its notes peppered and spiced and into rosy, with its candy notes.
After regroupings of pieces, improvements of land, replanting, the vineyard reached its current size of 30 ha in 1991. Many things were also improved at the cellar in term of equipment during all these years.

THE GRAPE, THE SOIL, BASES GOOD WINE : 

But at the bottom, like the beautiful kitchen, the wine we like with always comes from good grapes well riped. All the bases, only the bases and it is already much. On this simple adequacy, but far from being simplistic, I initially turned myself toward specialists in the soils to France. My step was to plant type of vines of my name in adequacy with the best soils of my town of Mesland. After a study soil ordered and realized at the end of 1990, I replanted 17 ha with all type of vines of my AOC on the most beautiful soils which I had gathered and bought to about thirty different owners.

MY CHOICE OF BIODYNAMIC GROWING:

Over the years our family traditions have brought me a deep rooted understanding of nature and its ways, in itself a great source of pleasure to me. This explains why I have been producing our wines along «biodynamics» methods as these follow the way of nature as closely as possible.
I am sure that you will come to appreciate this important aspect of our wines when you for yourselves come to discover the rich flavours found in them, their digestibility (no headaches!) and the overwhelming pleasure you will get from drinking the organic wines of Chateau Gaillard.

In 1994 my parents converted the ten hectares of the Clos de la Briderie to bio dynamics production.
In 2000, my parents decided to retire. I took over the management of the Clos de la Briderie, continuing once again a family tradition of producing top bio dynamic wines.
These wines are available on site to our regular local customers. We supply all the top restaurants and hotels in the Loire Valley as well to all other parts of France and the EEC.
Major overseas importers also have access to our wines and we leave it in their capable hands to distribute our wines in their countries.

MY NEW WINEYARDS:

Our recent expansion
In 2007, I acquired the Domaine des Cailloux vineyard (meaning stones) in nearby Onzain. The reason for its name is easy to find as the soil is flinty.
Since taking over I have introduced a three year campaign during which time I will completely restructure the vineyards, increasing it from 14 hectares to 20 hectares.
Its natural transformation into a biodynamic vineyard was put into action in spring 2008.

Also in 2008, the odds made that I crossed the Loire River for a meeting onto its southern shores and on travelling down stream I had the opportunity and pleasure of acquiring a further domain of 4 hectares of AOC Montlouis. Montlouis is a famous place for the use of Chenin, a white grape variety, to produce the delicious Montlouis wines.
Please note: all of our Domaine des Cailloux production will be reserved to our trade customers.
All our other wines appearing on this site, from all our different vineyards, are however available to you as of today.
Please come and taste our wines, in which the general spirit and the personality of the AOC Touraine Mesland is to be found in each one of them yet each one at the same time offering to your palate the fine subtleties� produced by our various terrors�!
Please do take the time to browse my website to understand the magic of biodynamie, to read the legend of Meslande...
And lastly please do not hesitate to contact us with any question you may have regarding our wines, our production methods, our tours: we will be all too happy to answer you quickly.

Vincent Girault