Château de Fesles: The Germain Era
And so after a brief period of ownership Gaston Lenôtre, now enlightened as to the difficulties – fiscal as well as viticultural – of making a low-yield sweet wine such as Bonnezeaux, sold up. This time the new owner restored the thread that seems to run between this corner of Anjou and Bordeaux; he was Bernard Germain, the head of a Bordeaux winemaking family. He took possession of Château de Fesles in 1996.
The Germain family owned several estates in minor Bordeaux appellations, and Bernard also worked as a négociant. He was not the first of his family to move to the Loire Valley, as his son Thierry Germain had already acquired Domaine des Roches Neuves in Varrains, just on the outskirts of Saumur, in 1991. Bernard followed on behind, acquiring what looks like a package of domaines and estates from Lenôtre, who had surely overstretched himself. Not only had he taken on Château de Fesles, he was also gérant at Château de Varennes in Savennières as well as Château de la Guimonière and Château de la Roulerie, both of these latter domaines firmly within the Anjou-Layon appellations. Bernard settled at Château de Fesles, Thierry at Domaine des Roches Neuves and Château de la Roulerie was eventually passed to Bernard’s other son, Philippe Germain.
