Château Gaudrelle: The Monmousseau Era
The story of the Monmousseau family begins with Alcide Monmousseau, who started a négociant business based in Montrichard, on the banks of the Cher, in 1886. This town had seen significant quarrying of its limestone to build the many grand châteaux of the Loire Valley, as discussed on the previous page, and Alcide took advantage of this when establishing his business. He acquired 15 kilometres of tunnels and underground galleries which he put to good use in the storage and maturing of wine.
The next generation to take control was Justin Monmousseau, and he took hold of the reins in the early 20th century. Although it is Alcide who is rightly credited with establishing the business it was Justin who was the first to introduce the méthode champenoise for making sparkling wine to the region. In doing so he started an association between the Monmousseau family and sparkling wine that still exists today, not so much through the wines made at Château Gaudrelle, which Justin Monmousseau purchased in 1931, but at Bouvet-Ladubay in Saumur. When the Bouvet-Ladubay empire was broken up in 1932, more than two decades after the death of Etienne-François Bouvet, the sparkling wine business was acquired by Justin.
Justin passed both of these businesses onto his son Jean Monmousseau, but when the time came to pass these on to the next generation the family jewels were divided out. Jean passed Bouvet-Ladubay onto one son Patrice, while Château Gaudrelle was handed over to another son, Armand. Armand Monmousseau managed the estate for many years, and it was he who oversaw a restoration of the property in 1974; the château as it stands today, an attractive building in the chartreuse style, low-slung and wide, with a single story save for the attic which is lit by stone-framed windows set into the roof, is the result of his work.
