A Visit to Domaine Belargus and the Pierre Couverte, 2024
The road along the right bank of the Layon is one I have travelled before, more than once or twice. Starting at the village of Faye-d’Anjou, it runs along the plateau above the river, through Mont Benault, Beaulieu-sur-Layon, Pierre Bise and Le Breuil, continuing above the vineyards of Chaume and Quarts de Chaume – all names familiar to followers of the region’s wines, both dry and sweet – before it stretches out onto the irregularly attenuating isthmus of the Corniche Angevine.
Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that it is a road I know well. Or at least I thought I knew it well. But now I have to ask whether or not I have been driving along it all these years with my eyes closed?
Never a good idea, I hear you say. But I didn’t mean it literally.
This time, thankfully, I wasn’t driving. Behind the wheel was Adrien Moreau, the man responsible for making the wines of Domaine Belargus. We had met up at his cellars in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay, always a poignant reminder of past visits here to meet Jo Pithon, or Jo and Wendy Paillé, as these were the old Pithon-Paillé cellars. From here we had struck out in his dusty grey 4×4, with its lumbering engine and sponge-soft suspension. We rumbled and rolled our way downhill to cross the Layon before climbing back up the other side, to the road I thought I knew so well.
In my defence I know the vineyards downstream of Beaulieu-sur-Layon better than those higher up, not least because this is where we find Chaume and Quarts de Chaume, and over the years I have toured them with everyone from Jo Paillé to Claude Papin. Adrien piloted his battleship through the town to vineyards further upstream, and a few minutes later he swung the wheel and we bounced off the road, before coming to a halt halfway along a woodland track. Alighting, we headed up into the adjacent vineyard in the domaine’s youngest parcel, Pierre Couverte.
And it wasn’t too difficult to see how this lieu-dit earned its name.
At the heart of the vineyard there stood an ancient dolmen, the Pierre Couverte.
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