Château de Minière: Vineyards
Having bought, sold and then bought more vineyards Kathleen Mareels-Van den Berghe realised she had a domaine that was still a little too large. The vineyards she had first sold off were easy to discard, as they were down in La Chapelle-sur-Loire, one of the two communes that run parallel to the Loire. Here, as I mentioned in my introduction, the soils are alluvial, the wine less interesting, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were also more prone to frost.
That left her with a collection of parcels up on the gravel terraces and more highly-prized limestone terroirs. Kathleen decided to draw a rough circle around the château and keep all those vineyards that lay within it, while everything that she excluded was sold off, bringing the domaine down to a more manageable 29 hectares. From this point on she has continued with this philosophy; if a parcel on good terroir near the château comes up for sale she will buy it, but she follows up by selling off a more distant parcel to compensate.
The result of this scheme has been that the 29 hectares of vines are now more concentrated around the château than ever. These are planted entirely to Cabernet Franc, Bourgueil being essentially an entirely red appellation. It does also allow for rosé wines, but in reality these account for only 2% of production.
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