A Visit to Domaine Cady, 2023
It was in April 2021 that the world was turned upside-down for the Cady clan, a long-established family of vignerons who have been turning out wines from their cellars, just downstream of Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné, for several generations.
On the night of April 1st a fire swept through the cellars. By the time the firefighters arrived, dispatched from two local stations, the cellars and another adjacent building were both fully ablaze. The sapeurs-pompiers did what they could, but despite their efforts the rising sun illuminated a scene of devastation. The cellars were razed to the ground, a smouldering wreck of fallen roof and folded walls. What was inside – an array of winemaking equipment, cuves, amphorae and barrels, their contents of course, and a library of older vintages in bottle – were all lost forever.
With remarkable fortitude the family picked themselves up, and by the time the 2021 harvest came around the site had been cleared and a temporary cuverie erected. This was put to use for the 2021 and 2022 harvests, while in the background they planned, funded and set about the construction of new permanent facilities. Not on the banks of the Layon, though. The new cellars, which have a rather utilitarian air, but which hide a handsome array of freestanding and subterranean cuves, stand on the slopes above the town of Rochefort-sur-Loire, overlooking the vines of the Clos du Moulin Sainte Catherine which the Cady family acquired in 2018.
Keen to see them being put to use, I called in on the Alexandre Cady (pictured) and his father Philippe Cady in October 2023, in the closing stages of the harvest.
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