Domaine Delaporte: Gabriel Delaporte
As is the case with a number of other local vignerons, such as Gérard Boulay, local documents suggest that the Delaporte family have been present in Chavignol for many hundreds of years, since at least the 17th century. And as is also the case with many domaines in and around Sancerre, it was only really during the course of the 20th century that the domaine grew into what it is today.
The story becomes tangible with the arrival on the scene of Gabriel Delaporte, Matthieu’s great grandfather. In truth Gabriel was a vigneron, but he ran a polycultural domaine, growing other crops as well, and he had some goats of course. This was the norm for the early 20th century, not just here around Sancerre but downstream in Touraine and Anjou as well (although I suspect there was less emphasis on goats in Anjou than there was here in Sancerre). On his domaine Gabriel had just 1.8 hectares of vines, even so Matthieu believes this was one of the region’s largest domaines. “At this time”, he says, “Sancerre only had 200 hectares of vines”, most of which would have been held in small parcels, on smallholdings like Gabriel’s.
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