Ampelidae

Ampelidae is born in 1995, in the family domaine where Frederic just started a few years before to produce his first wine at the age of 11 with only 2 small tanks, 3 oak barrels and a bucket!

Don’t be fooled by appearances. An intelligent air, a touch of  « top of the class », a piercing gaze, an encyclopaedic knowledge and a whiff of academia... Wouldn’t he be better placed onto a university chair?  He flirted for a while with the idea of being in the academic world and came away with degrees, scholarships, doctorates and publications :  but this is not where his true heart lies.

Certainly Frédéric Brochet has the qualities of a scientist: observant, curious, an explorer, patient and methodical…  but what makes him tick most of all, is a passion that he acquired as a child, a passion for wine.  Wasn’t it a bit odd that as a fourteen year he started keeping a cellar book of his family’s homemade wine? What kind of character dedicates all his weekends and school holidays even as a teenager to tending an acre or so of vines that happen to have been left to the Brochet family? It surely was an extraordinary passion that led him to set up a wine business at the same time as doing his studies, to start with nothing but  49 ares (and 50 centiares) in a barely known wine producing area…  How many cold nights were spent in the troglodytes caves of Marigny-Brizay watching the wines ferment…and days spent testing the patience of bankers!

It was in 1995 during the first year of his PhD in Oenology and Ampelology (« Aspects cognitifs de la dégustation ») that Frédéric Brochet created Domaine Ampelidae (from the Greek Ampelos meaning vine), out of those few vines inherited from his father.

His ambition: to create excellent wine out of a little known terroir:  his own.

His secret: the stamina of a marathon runner and the sleeping pattern of a round the world yachtsman!

Today Frédéric Brochet is a winemaker. A smart winemaker. That is possible really! Frédéric Brochet and wine: like Ying and Yang, Black and Red in roulette, the white and yolk of an egg.  You wont get any better.  You will find him either deep in the midst of his vines or contemplating his cuves, his centre of gravity is the terroir of Marigny.

Our vineyard is split in 2 main parts, surrounding both the Manoir of Lavauguyot and the Château des Roches spread over 30 Km (18,70 Miles) around Marigny-Brizay. Each year are vinified over 115 Ha, among them 75 Ha belong to the estate. All the different kind of "terroirs" are as much expressions of the grape varieties which make our range of wines so rich and diversified. Thanks to the geological structure of the vineyard, we can work with various grape varieties, such as the Sauvignon Blanc and Gris, the Pinot Noir and as well the two Cabernet.

Frédéric Brochet’s attack of conscience over the question of conventional farming methods in viticulture coincided with the birth of his children and his realisation of a duty to pass things down for the future. But he had always had a passion for ecology ever since the day when he first bought a book about winemaking (Nature et progrès)… and bottled  organic wine with his schoolfriend Matthew (that was in 1988!) At Ampelidae, being organic is fundamental to the ecology of protecting the earth and the species in it. And if being organic can sometimes seem to be a dream of « going back to nature » and avoiding technological intervention, Frédéric Brochet, on the contrary embraces an organic approach  compatible with science and contemporary technology.

It is science and a true knowledge of plant biology that is going to allow us to cultivate vines without the use of chemicals. It is technology in the chai that is going to allow us to preserve and fully express the potential and character of grape varieties and soils.  Innovation is considered by Frédéric Brochet as fundamental to organic farming in the contemporary context.

The move towards converting to organic began in 2000. Ecocert certification in Organic Agriculture  was given in 2004, and the whole of the vines that are farmed by  Ampelidae became organic in 2007.  Today Ampelidae accounts for 100% of the organic vines in the Vienne outside Saumur, 80% of organic Pinot-Noir and 75% of organic Sauvignon in the Loire.

2014 harvest, what a surprising vintage! After a rainy and cold summer, September is now superb with hot and sunny days. Nicely balanced grapes are being picked in perfect conditions. All the winemaking team, swimming in intense flavours of tropical fruits make their best for producing the very best, motivated also by new tools and new cuvees to come...