Domaine Sérol
Appellation: Côte Roannaise
Owner: Stéphane & Carine Sérol
Ten-second primer: A key domaine for the appellation, having been built up during the 1960s and 1970s by Robert Sérol, a figurehead for the region who was instrumental in having the Côte Roannaise appellation recognised. Certified organic and biodynamic.
This profile includes: Three pages of history and detail (links above), and tasting notes back to 2013.
High up on the foothills of the Massif Central we find the Côte Roannaise appellation. This is an ancient region, where the marriage of the locally favoured Gamay Saint-Romain variety with the region’s granitic soils can be traced back over many centuries, back to a time when these slopes were carpeted with vines. There were, before phylloxera, perhaps 20,000 hectares of vines here, making this a significant appellation, and yet one which today has almost entirely disappeared. In many parts the empty terraces devoid of vines, and the burons, the stone-built workers’ huts high in the mountains, are all that remain of what was a huge wine region.
Thankfully, there are today a handful of extant domaines manned by vignerons who carry this powerful viticultural heritage with them. Principal among them are the Sérol family, who have been viticulteurs on the slopes to the west of Roanne for far longer than anyone imagines, and I suspect even for longer than the incumbent at this domaine, Stéphane Sérol himself, seems to believe. Stéphane (pictured below) tells me that the vines of his domaine have been passed from father to son across five generations, although my research suggests that the association between this family and vine is much more deeply rooted than that one fact suggests. A little digging through the archives reveals the Sérol family have been tending vines in the region for at least three centuries. And probably longer than that.
Origins
Having traced Stéphane’s lineage back as far as the mid-16th century, the first of his ancestors that is of interest to us is Claude Sérol (1667 – 1719), a vigneron born in Ambierle, a town today best known for the Église Saint Martin and its associated priory, founded in the early Middle Ages. Destroyed by fire in 1441, the priory and church were rebuilt, and the latter is notable for its roof of geometric patterns made from multicoloured glazed tiles akin to that atop the Hospices de Beaune. Claude no doubt worshipped here, but I know nothing more of him. Nevertheless I am certain of one thing. Claude would not have been a full-time vigneron as Stéphane is today, as this was not the model of times past in this region. Here, as is true further downstream along the Loire, viticulture was but one small part of the smallholder’s life, your few rows of vines an adjunct to your other crops, and perhaps your livestock.
