The Gadais Family Domaines, 2021
The Gadais family have an impressive array of vineyards in Muscadet. First and foremost is Gadais Père et Fils, in Saint-Fiacre, the vineyards having been handed down from Louis, to Marcel and Michel, and then to Christophe Gadais. Christophe has been at the helm here since the 1990s, although in recent years he has been passing this responsibility on to his son, the talented Pierre-Henri Gadais. In recent years Pierre-Henri has been increasingly responsible for the direction of this estate, as well as Domaine de la Tourmaline, a sizeable property which Christophe added to the Gadais portfolio some years ago.
After gaining experience elsewhere Pierre-Henri Gadais only returned to the family domaine as recently as 2016, and it seems the two aforementioned domaines were not quite enough of a challenge for him. For a few years Christophe Gadais had also been looking after vines belonging to Nelly Marzelleau, who sold her wines as Les Grands Presbytères, and this was role was also passed on to Pierre-Henri who, with a young family to look after as well, is presumably a busy young man.
In this short report I take a look at four recent releases from the Gadais family, two under the Gadais Père et Fils label, and two marked up as Domaine de la Combe, the new name for the Marzelleau vines. Two of the wines hail from the 2018 vintage, a very successful year for the Gadais clan; after a season free of frost, and marked by a warm summer, the yield was a handsome 60 hl/ha. The 2019 vintage was blighted by frost and the volume picked was half that achieved the preceding year, with a yield of just 30 hl/ha, although Christophe Gadais asserts this was largely down to the dehydration of the long dry summer, the slopes of Saint-Fiacre apparently having escaped any significant frost-induced damage.
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