Vignobles Günther-Chéreau: Vineyards
The estate of Château du Coing de Saint-Fiacre is located at the confluence of the Sèvre and Maine rivers, south of the city of Nantes. The château looks down upon the Sèvre and a small distributory, the two being reunified directly in front of the château. Just 200 metres north, the smaller Sèvre flows into the Maine, a considerably larger river at this point. As such the château and vineyards are situated in a small, water-locked isthmus, with rivers on three sides, and open land only to the east. It seems likely that coing, a derivative of coin (meaning corner) refers to the position of the château, neatly nestled in this little corner of the Nantais. The town of Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine lies about one kilometre east, and beyond them are Clisson and Vallet. Château-Thébaud – after which one of the region’s principal types of granite is named – lies to the south-east.
The vineyards are extensive, and all lie to the east of the château. The south-facing vineyards closest to Château du Coing de Saint-Fiacre also take its name, and the soils here are typically schist and micaschist, laced with crystalline elements including silicates known locally as grenats. There are two other domaines here though, also run by the Günther-Chéreau family. The first is Grand Fief de la Cormeraie, which has much more simple, sandy soils. The base is clay and alluvial sand, but the more shallow layers are marked by aeolian (wind-blown) sands and Quaternary (very young, deposited within the last three million years) gravel. The third estate under the auspices of the Günther-Chéreau family is the Château de la Gravelle, where the soils are typically clay over gabbro, an igneous rock. The vineyards are planted mostly with Melon de Bourgogne, although there are a few hectares devoted to other varieties.
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