Château de Plaisance: The Rochais Family
Henri Rochais ran Château de Plaisance for many years, but along the way he married Jeanine Teyssandier and the couple had two sons, Guy and Alain. By the 1980s Guy Rochais was working with his father on the estate, and eventually he would take over its running altogether. At this time there were 15 hectares of vines, almost exclusively gathered around the château. They were turning out a diverse portfolio of wines, as per the usual Anjou schema. Alongside the sweet wines from the Chaume vines they were also making dry white, rosé and red, and a little sparkling wine too. The sweet wines were what drew buyers and tasters to the estate though, and the wines seemed to have been well received. In Les Vins du Val de Loire (Éditions Jema SA, 1982), Suzanne Blanchet wrote of Château de Plaisance, “Henri Rochais and son produce on this land one of the finest Chaumes”.
In 1983 Henri and Guy Rochais made their sole foray out of the Anjou and Coteaux du Layon appellations with the acquisition of 2 hectares of vines in Savennières. The vines were in the Clos de Mauriers, and they bought them from the Soulez family, another old winemaking family with a long presence in the region. This was a noteworthy move as it was only in 1968 than Jean Baumard of Domaine des Baumard had broke new ground with the acquisition of vines in the appellation. There was than a fifteen-year drought, after which the Rochais family were the next to cross the river. They were followed by a wave of Ligérian vignerons keen to get involved in Savennières, among them Claude Papin, Yves Guégniard, Vincent Ogereau, Eric Morgat, and many others. It was an early indicator of Guy Rochais’ adventurous spirit as this is not the last new ‘venture’ that he would undertake during his tenure of Château de Plaisance.
