Domaine Fouassier: Jules Fouassier
After the devastation of phylloxera the viticultural landscape of the Loire Valley was reorganised; most smallholders gave up on their vineyards, as the new requirement to graft the vines onto phylloxera-resistant rootstock was simply too onerous and expensive for what was essentially a part-time activity. Those with the commitment to graft new vines and to replant, however, were thus able to expand their domaines, as once great terroirs laid barren by the louse came onto the market. These were the challenges but also the opportunities that faced Jules Fouassier when he took control of the family’s vineyards during the latter years of the 19th century.
Jules had married Marie Rose Elise Vignel (born 1864) on May 12th 1891, and they had a son Gustave (1892 – 1965), born the following year. Gustave (known as ‘Tav’ to his friends) was still a young boy when his father Jules Fouassier began the reconstitution of the family domaine, the most significant act being the replanting of Clos Paradis, a lieu-dit which lies close to that tree-lined avenue cutting through the Sancerre countryside, in 1902. Jules was something of a trailblazer for the appellation, being one of the first to follow the new post-phylloxera system of planting, placing the grafted vines in neat rows, supported by three wires suspended between wooden stakes, spaced a very regimented 1.2 metres apart. He was also an early adopter of the new treatments against the novel vineyard afflictions of the 20th century, mildew and oidium, spraying his vines with copper sulphate and wettable sulphur as required.
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