Château de Plaisance

Château de Plaisance

【Carrying on the soul of Chaume, and making it shine anew】

Château de Plaisance stands at Chaume, one of the great terroirs of the Loire.

After graduating from the wine school in Angers, Vanessa Cherruau spent twelve years working in the wine trade.

In time she grew close to the Rochais family, who owned Château de Plaisance on the hill of Chaume — in truth more a farmhouse than a château — together with 25 hectares of vines spread across the schist bedrock of the district.

The historic property had been destined for sale to the local cooperative, but Vanessa persuaded the family to hand it to her instead.

In doing so she took up the remarkable legacy they had built and set about opening a new path in the Loire.

As luck would have it, the vines she inherited were the best-tended on the hill.

Plaisance has been certified organic since 1995 and biodynamic since 2008, and she has carried on the biodynamic work her predecessors began.

She does so because she understands that nothing matters more than protecting the natural world in which the vines live.

Since her first vintage in 2019, Vanessa has lifted the standing of dry Chenin from the hill of Chaume, now watched as one of the most compelling terroirs in the Loire.

Chaume lies ten kilometres south of Savennières, within an appellation that permits sweet wine alone — Quarts de Chaume Grand Cru and Coteaux du Layon Premier Cru Chaume.

Neither Vanessa nor any other grower may therefore put the name Chaume on the label of a dry Chenin grown on the hill.

Undeterred, she has gone on making dry wines of world class, and with fellow growers she has created a new name for dry Chenin from fruit harvested on the hill of Chaume: Ronceray.

The name comes from the abbey that made dry wine on the hill of Chaume in the seventeenth century.

By adopting it, they hope to carry the dry wines of Chaume out into the world.

Vanessa is at the very heart of the drive for quality here, and her wines stand out for their purity and their extraordinary mineral definition.