Domaine des Tilleuls, 2021 Update
I seem to have been spending a lot of time skirting around the peripheries of the Muscadet Sèvre et Maine appellation in recent weeks, with my recently published profile of Les Frères Couillaud, and there is a long-overdue profile of the Sauvion family at Château du Cléray in the pipeline too. Both domaines are situated very close to one another, just to the east of the town of Vallet, at the heart of one of the last of the region’s zones to seek cru communal status.
A few minutes down the road is another Vallet domaine which I have come to know quite well over the last few years, this being Domaine des Tilleuls. The Houssin family have been based here since ancestor Auguste Godefroy bought a vineyard in the early years of the 20th century. Today Jérôme Houssin, the fifth generation of the family to take the reins, is in charge. He has about 30 hectares of vines to work with, 50% of which are Melon de Bourgogne, as you would expect here in Muscadet country. He also works with Chardonnay, which the family first planted here in 1983; they have had particular success with this variety, and thus today it accounts for 20% of the vineyard. What remains is a mix of Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc.
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