Exploring new Loire estate Domaine Belargus

Ivan Massonnat had long relished the idea of buying a wine estate and now the proud owner of the winery Domaine Belargus in the Loire Valley.

Ivan Massonnat is a shrewd businessman. His main day job is his role as partner of the large private-equity firm, PAI Partners, which acquires companies involved in diverse sectors of activity, then revitalises them by managing them along the lines of a start-up before selling them for a profit after a few years of development. In charge of relations with institutional as well as private investors, Ivan Massonnat spends much of his time traveling to capital cities across the globe and eating at the best restaurants. He is also a passionate wine lover who had the habit of spending as much of his leisure time as possible in vineyards.

For a long time, Ivan Massonnat nurtured the idea of buying a wine estate. A native of the Savoie region and a lover of Burgundy wines, he made plans to realise his “idée fixe”: an early retirement in order to become a wine producer himself. After several years of looking for a domaine to acquire, it was the Loire Valley, in particular the area known as Anjou, that grabbed his attention.

‘I was chosen by Anjou’

After a deal for a property in the Chinon appellation fell through, Massonnat was introduced by Anjou wine-grower Patrick Baudouin to one of the most admired of all producers in the region, Jo Pithon, who was looking to retire. After a previous partnership with an outside investor had soured, Pithon launched a new venture in 2008, Pithon-Paillé, which in addition to owning several hectares of vines, had a négociant activity. From the start of their discussions, Massonnat and Pithon hit it off and found common ground. It could be said that the deal to buy the domaine and its wine business company was clinched after Massonnat visited Pithon’s treasure trove of vines that he had planted on a hillside, the Coteau des Treilles, and then felt first-hand the impact of such an exceptional terroir.

‘I did not choose Anjou; I was chosen by Anjou, which is so beautifully endowed with that amazing grape variety, Chenin Blanc, but also with a hierarchy of millennial terroirs that reminds me of Burgundy, which I love so much,’ explains Ivan Massonnat.

Pithon had vineyards in both the Anjou and Savennières appellations, but his crown jewel was the previously mentioned Clos des Treilles, a contiguous vineyard of a single block located on a south-facing hillside that he had cleared and replanted to vines. Although vines had existed on this magical spot in the past, past growers found it too difficult on this steep terrain to maintain them in the aftermath of the dreaded phylloxera crisis and then World War II.

It has been said that great terroirs are not preordained, but the creation of stubborn civilisations and the result of human obstinacy. Clos des Treilles is a textbook example of this, and Massonnat will continue to polish this diamond in the rough as well as its setting.

Jo Pithon’s deep knowledge of the Anjou region proved to be yet another windfall for Massonnat, who was able to meet other winegrowers in the region and find further opportunities. One proved to be particularly propitious. The Laffourcade family decided to sell its estate in the nearby Quarts de Chaume appellation – the only one in the Loire Valley to have grand cru status – comprising almost 10 hectares. Massonnat lost no time in concluding a deal, and this new acquisition is now the cornerstone of his long-term project.

‘I love Chenin, the emblematic grape of Anjou. But it appeared to us that dry wines could reveal terroir character just as well as sweet wines. And with the economic difficulty of selling sweet wines, we decided to produce great dry white wines from terroirs usually devoted to sweet ones,’ he says. So the long-term project has entered a new phase with this bold move.

Biodynamics

Massonnat is a fervent champion of environmental protection, and so turned to Guy Bossard, former owner of Domaine de l’Ecu in the Muscadet region and pioneer of biodynamics in that appellation. His mission is to convert the entire vineyard to biodynamics. Massonnat cannot resist the temptation of a great terroir, and so just a year ago another opportunity came knocking in the form of a small, rather unprepossessing plot of vines up for sale. Its new owner could see its extraordinary potential, as it is located just off a road descending from the famous Coulée de Serrant estate in the Savennières appellation and lies on a soil containing the rare but coveted purple schist. It even has the glamour of being both a clos and a monopole, and even its name, Clos des Ruchères, seems destined to get good buzz.

Ivan Massonnat’s ambitious project is now in working order. The first vintage 2018 promises to be extraordinary. So ‘magnificent that we are going to produce four cuvées of sweet wines, which we will not do every year, and seven cuvées of site-specific dry wines’. The team – led by the youngest employee, agricultural engineer Adrien Moreau – has an average age of 28 years and perfect gender parity.

The future seems radiant for this new Domaine Belargus, now comprising 26 hectares. Its name derives from that of a blue butterfly present on the Coteau des Treilles, one of the places with the highest biodiversity in Anjou. Remember this name, as its production should meet with resounding critical success in the coming years.

Tasting the Domaine Belargus wines