Domaine Filliatreau: Vineyards
The Filliatreau vineyards can be considered in three parts. First, around the original domaine in Chaintre, very close to Château de Chaintres, there is an expanse of vineyards all managed using lutte raisonnée. Then there is La Grand Vignolle (pictured), a lieu-dit which was once the site of significant excavation of the local tuffeau limestone in order to built the region’s many fine châteaux. The limestone escarpment runs parallel to the Loire, upstream of Saumur, and the troglodytic houses built into the limestone look out onto the vines and then the palus and river below. Here the vines – which sit up on the plateau behind the escarpment – include some older pieds, which might be managed organically, but otherwise it is lutte raisonnée here again. Then there is the aforementioned Château Fouquet, which is organic and biodynamic; this domaine is located in a hamlet named Grand Fond, just to the east of Brézé.
The domaine now accounts for approximately 50 hectares of the Saumur-Champigny appellation, the largest in the region, and easily matching the size of many grander Médoc properties, as a comparison. The soils are dominated by tuffeau limestone, to a profound degree.
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