Jean Tatin & Chantal Wilk
Many appellations have their figureheads. Here in the Loire Valley’s Central Vineyards, more specifically in Reuilly and Quincy, however, we find vignerons who might more be regarded as their saviours. During the latter years of the 20th century both appellations were shrinking at an alarming rate. Year on year the area dedicated to the vine grew smaller, this decline accompanied by an exodus as the region’s sons and daughters left to find work elsewhere. As the appellations neared extinction two men were instrumental in turning around this seemingly inevitable decline.
In Reuilly there was the late Claude Lafond (1952 – 2015), a key figure in the development of the shared Chai de Reuilly and already profiled on this site. Occupying a parallel role in Quincy, meanwhile, was Jean Tatin. While Jean took up his secateurs as much as a decade after Claude, I have no doubt that Quincy owes as much to this him as Reuilly does to Claude Lafond. And this accomplishment seems all the more remarkable when we realise that Jean, despite being the scion of a long-established local family, did not plant his first vines here until the late 1980s.
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