Just One Man Can Make a Difference: Domaine Beauséjour, 2026
Because just one man can make a difference, that’s why.
– David Hasselhoff as Michael Knight, Knight Rider (1982)
Just one man can make a difference is the credo of the Knight Foundation, the organisation behind Michael Knight and his sentient supercar KITT in Knight Rider (come on, don’t go all high-brow on me and pretend you’ve never watched it).
The line first crops up in Knight of the Phoenix (the 1982 pilot episode – but you probably already knew that) when David – sorry, I mean Michael Knight – delivers the line in response to his patron Wilton Knight’s questioning about his determination to track down the arch-criminal Tanya Walker. The phrase comes to define the entire show (all four seasons – and let’s not forget the 2008 spin-off movie), Wilton Knight adopting the phrase and occasionally serving it back to The Hoff – sorry, again, I mean Michael Knight – on a silver platter.
The philosophical phrase rings true. One man can make a difference.
That man in the Loire Valley, however, seems to be Ivan Massonnat.
Now, I am not suggesting that since creating Domaine Belargus from the vineyards of Jo Pithon back in 2019 Ivan has been forced to battle his evil twin at a top-secret missile silo (for the inquisitive, Goliath, season 2, 1983), nor has he had to fend off radio-controlled robots and Kung Fu assassins (Knight of the Drones, season 3, 1984) but he has still made a difference, having rescued not one, not two, but three of the region’s most renowned domaines from an uncertain future.
