Domaine des Huards, 2025 Update
“It was rather a come-down for us to have to now explain that we were not prospective purchasers, but had come for information concerning Cour-Cheverny vineyards. Unfortunately Madame was new to the district and so it meant a visit to a café after all. Eventually we were bowling along to a hamlet called Les Huards with a choice of two introductions. One of these was to a Monsieur Gendrier, into whose farmyard we shortly drove.”
– Wines and Châteaux of the Loire (1967), Thomas A. Layton
Having had my feet up for the best part of last week I took it upon myself to read more of Thomas Layton’s account of his travels along the length of the Loire Valley. Starting at the source of the river at Mont Gerbier de Jonc Layton, who seems to have been one-third wine merchant, one-third restaurateur and one-third grumpy old codger, recounts his journey down to St-Nazaire, visiting churches, châteaux and one or two wine domaines along the way.
Sadly, the identity of many of the domaines which endured his visits remains vague, the name of the viticulteur in question unfamiliar or omitted. In some regions he seems to forego making any visits at all, instead choosing to wax lyrical on long-forgotten crus and lieux-dits, often from the comfort of a local bar, café or bistro. On occasion, however, a name leaps from the page with startling clarity; such as Gendrier, at Les Huards, in Cour-Cheverny.
As already detailed in my profile of Domaine des Huards, the Gendrier family have been present in the Cheverny and Cour-Cheverny regions since at least 1846, when a polycultural smallholding was established here by Pierre Gendrier. It has been passed down from father to son ever since, and when I first encountered the wines it was the sixth generation – Michel Gendrier and his wife Jocelyne – who were in charge. Today this responsibility falls to a younger generation, although at Layton’s time it would have been Michel’s father, Marcel Gendrier, and his wife, Rolande, who held sway. During the course of his visit, however, Layton encounters “several children playing around in the tractor shed”; I suspect this was Michel and his two sisters.
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