Domaine J. de Villebois

Joost de Willebois was a financier in the Netherlands. In 2004 he bought a small Loire winery that had nobody to carry it on — it was called La Chardoisie and belonged to Marc Buchet — and ended up leaving finance to do this full time.

The first wine was an IGP Val de Loire sauvignon blanc, from vines in Mareuil-sur-Cher. In 2008 came the first agreements with growers in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.

Today they work sauvignon blanc only, spread across the appellations of the upper and central Loire: Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, Menetou-Salon and Touraine.

They choose the plots by the soil: the «bournais» pebbles of Touraine, the flint of Pouilly-Fumé and the limestone and marl of the Sancerre hillsides.

The Touraine comes from the banks of the Cher, on clay soils with flint. The fruit is machine-picked and pressed in a pneumatic press after twelve hours of skin maceration. It ferments seven to fifteen days in tank and ages six months in stainless steel on its fine lees.