Domaine des Huards: Origins
The story of Domaine des Huards begins in 1846, when the smallholding was established by ancestor Pierre Gendrier. The domaine is located just two kilometres north of Cour-Cheverny itself, and just eight kilometres south-west of Château de Chambord, where François I would eat, drink and be merry after a busy day of hunting. The focus of the domaine at this time was not vineyards though, perhaps unsurprisingly; this is the Sologne, a very pastoral landscape of rolling agricultural land dotted with patches of forest, lakes and rivers. The rich, marshy land was only really opened up to agriculture during the middle of the 19th century, under the direction of Napoleon III. The pioneers – and Pierre Gendrier was probably one of their number – would probably have had more interest in planting arable crops or fruit trees before their thoughts turned to establishing a vineyard.
The name of Gendrier is particularly associated with this triangle of land between the Loire and the Cher, especially around Cour-Cheverny and the less-familiar Sainte-Claude-de-Diray, which lies on the banks of the Loire, just upstream of Blois. Indeed, my researches (which have been somewhat more painstaking than my investigation into the true character of François I) reveal that many of these long-lost Gendriers were vignerons, recorded as such on marriage certificates. From the branch of the family in Sainte-Claude-de-Diray there was, for example, a Pierre Gendrier (born 1817) and his son Moïse Pierre Gendrier (born 1857) who were both vignerons. It is tempting to believe that this Pierre was the same Pierre who established Domaine des Huards, but I don’t believe it to be so. My efforts to track down more details of the real Pierre have not borne fruit.
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