Father and Son: Domaine de la Taille aux Loups
I was once like you are now and I know that it’s not easy
To be calm when you’ve found something going on
But take your time, think a lot
Think of everything you’ve got
– Father and Son, Cat Stevens (1970)
Three years – almost to the day – have passed since the passing of one of the Loire Valley’s most venerated vignerons.
Jacky Blot (1948 – 2023) entered the world of wine in the late 1980s, leaving behind a job in a Paris kitchen – where he had discovered the liquid which entrances us all – to take up as a position as a courtier, making and breaking wine deals, based in Touraine. Very soon he went one step further, taking over the running of a young but already failing domaine in Montlouis-sur-Loire. Established by the Bordeaux viticulturalist Christian Prudhomme in 1988 the project had floundered; Jacky stepped in with the 1990 vintage, and by 1992 the domaine was his.
From that 7-hectare beginning grew the Domaine de la Taille aux Loups we know today. At the time many saw Montlouis-sur-Loire as a failed appellation, with no domaines of note, and no wines of interest; during the 1990s and early 21st century a group of vignerons began raising the appellation’s profile and rebuilding its image. From among them two figureheads emerged; François Chidaine and, of course, Jacky Blot.
Over the next three decades Jacky established a reputation not only as one of the leading and most influential vignerons in the appellation, but also as one of the most renowned of the entire Loire Valley. His achievements with his Bourgueil project, Domaine de la Butte, only served to cement in place this reputation.
He was joined in his work by his son, Jean-Philippe Blot, at least two decades ago, when Jean-Philippe (pictured below in Clos Michet, in October 2025) was still a teenager. While I can recall the exact month and year I first met Jacky, I am not at all certain of the date when I first shook Jean-Philippe’s hand. And this, perhaps, is the problem for any son taking over from a famous father; it is inevitable that life begins in the shadow of the older man, father and son perhaps regarding each other with the weary wisdom and sense of restlessness that Cat Stevens sang about.
