Domaine de la Noblaie, Pierre de Tuf, 2003 – 2020
During the 20th century the French region of Corrèze, one of France’s poorest, saw an outflux of young people seeking work, and perhaps even fame and fortune. One among their number was Pierre Manzagol who would eventually settle at La Noblaie, on the banks of the Vienne. His new home was surrounded by vineyards once actively tended but at the time they were abandoned and overgrown, although still brimming with potential.
The domaine had, like many in this region, succumbed to phylloxera, which arrived in the vineyards of Chinon during the 1880s. It had to wait seventy years for the arrival of its saviour; Pierre resuscitated the domaine, replanting the vineyards and putting the cellars to use once more. And thus Domaine de la Noblaie was born. He subsequently passed it to his son-in-law François Billard, who in the fullness of time passed it to his son, Jérôme. Tapping into his Corrèze family connections – their cousins have the surname Moueix – Jérôme’s curriculum vitae includes stints at Petrus in Bordeaux, and Dominus in California.
While the increasingly distinguished Jérôme Billard (pictured) today runs a very modern domaine, with new winemaking facilities (first utilised in 2012) packed out with stainless steel cuves, barrels and amphorae, the evidence that there was viticulture here for centuries before the louse swept the vines from the landscape is incontrovertible. One cellar is home to a pressing area, complete with drainage channels carved from the rock itself, to take the juice as it is released. Meanwhile, in another cellar, there is a vessel fashioned from solid limestone rock where many centuries ago grapes would, under the watchful eye of some long-forgotten proprietor, undergo a mystical transformation, their sweet juice turned into wine by some unseen force.
