Clos la Néore: Robert & Edmond
Jean Gustave and Berthe Maréchal had two children named Robert Aristide Vatan (born 1897) and Pauline Marthe Henriette Vatan. The former married Andrée Georgette Boullay on April 10th 1928. Robert was the father of Edmond Vatan, a familiar name to all fans of Clos la Néore. It was, however, only at about this time the family came to be more associated with Chavignol than Bué. Like his father and grandfather and many other ancestors he took up working in the vines, however, it seems that it was not from his father or grandfather that he learnt his trade. In his grandfather’s case this was because he died when Robert was young, and although I cannot be sure perhaps his father did too. Robert looked to his mother’s brother, the aforementioned Louis Léon Maréchal, for mentorship. It was Léon, as he was called, that showed Robert the traditional methods, methods he would ultimately pass on to his own son Edmond.
For most fans of Clos la Néore it is the wines of Edmond Vatan that they have come to appreciate. This is hardly surprising, because Edmond put in six decades of work on the slopes above the village of Chavignol before he eventually retired, the 2007 vintage his last. The methods employed by Edmond over the years were no more than an adherence to a traditional way of working, mirroring (and perhaps inspiring) the methods that might have been practised by the likes of Paul and Francis Cotat, the fathers of François Cotat and Pascal Cotat, or by Claude Thomas, the father-in-law of Jean-Paul Labaille, all significant figures in the appellation during Edmond’s era.
Please log in to continue reading: