Le Domaine d'Henri

The winemaking origins of the Laroche family can be traced back through several generations. Delving deep into the family history, we have found ancestors, born in 1695, who owned vines. The very first “vigneron” in the family was Louis Laroche, born in 1781, whose holding was almost certainly only small. Jean Victor bought his first parcel of vines in 1850, in the village of Maligny, but it wasn’t yet what one could call a “domaine”. 

The vineyards have been passed from one generation to the next, the surface gradually increasing over time. When my grandfather, Jean, passed away at the beginning of the 1960s, my father inherited the two hectares that my grandfather had planted. When I joined the family company at the end of the 1960s, my father owned six hectares – which was a good-sized holding for the time. 

For our first two harvests (2012 and 2013), our vineyards covered 3,24 ha of Chablis and 4,50 ha of Premier Cru Fourchaume. In Spring 2014, we were able to double our vineyard holding by acquiring an additional 3,41 ha of Petit Chablis and 5,21 ha of Chablis. 

When the current rental agreements on our remaining vineyards expire in 2019, our vineyard holding will exceed 22 hectares (Petit Chablis: 4,41 ha, Chablis: 11,05 ha, Premier Cru Beauroy: 1,48 ha and Premier Cru Fourchaume: 5,17 ha) – a nice little family estate.

The genetic heritage of our vineyards

In 2012, we started a massal selection from our oldest Fourchaume vines, planted in 1937, before the existence of clones. These vines provide us with a unique heritage that we absolutely want to preserve. 

The plot contains some 4,000 vine plants and just before harvest we inspected each one to evaluate the quality of the trunk and the shoots, the number of bunches and the quality and maturity levels of the grapes. This first selection allowed us to earmark 300 vines, which were re-evaluated in 2013 in order to eliminate a further 100. We now have 200 plants, which were laboratory-tested to ensure they were free of viral illnesses such as fan-leaf (‘court-noué’), which will affect the quality of the fruit and longevity of the vines. Of the 200 cuttings tested, 195 showed no sign of the virus – remarkable!

A specialist is now propagating these cuttings and will provide us with 1200 grafted vines. These will be planted in front of our winery and will create an invaluable conservatory made from our oldest vines - the DNA of our vineyards. All new plantings will come from these vines. 

To better know our soils

In addition to the fundamental work on the vine canopy, we have joined forces with renowned soil specialist, Claude Bourguignon, and his son, Emmanuel, to gain a better understanding of our soils. The soil is a very complex, living environment that deserves to be better understood. It is, after all, the soil that will allow the vine to reach its full qualitative potential. It is important to understand the living organisms present in the soil: microbial, bacterial, vegetal and animal, such as worms that will help break up and aerate our soils. 

In parcels with a strong proportion of clay, we leave the natural grass to grow between the rows of vines, mowing it from time to time. The grass will absorb the excess humidity, rather than the vine. 

Different technics are adapted to each terroir in order to allow the vine roots to develop as harmoniously as possible in order to better regulate the impact of climatic incidents, and also to penetrate as deeply as possible into the different soil profiles in order to express the individuality of each parcel. 

This is a long-term commitment, but it is vital if we want to produce wines that truly express the terroir. 

Parcels are vinified separately in order to allow the personality of each terroir to be fully expressed and only the best grapes will make great wines.

Like the previous generations, we know that quality begins in the vineyard and as a result, we treat our vineyards with the utmost respect. Each vine is treated individually. Pruning is adapted to encourage the right amount of fruit per vine. In order to allow grapes to reach full maturity in the optimum conditions they must be properly ventilated, therefore, we remove the leaves form the least exposed side, and green harvest if necessary.

Our philosophy in the vineyard is very simple – apart from tending to the vines and tilling the soils, we intervene as little as possible. We prefer to let nature take its course. Ours is a common sense approach that only uses treatments if absolutely necessary. We are committed to produce healthy grapes and to preserve our vineyards for the future generations.

Our new winery, at the entrance to Chablis on the Route d’Auxerre, is equipped with the very best winemaking equipment, despite our firm belief in minimum intervention! Our Premier Cru grapes are harvested by hand and are then sorted on a vibrating table in order to ensure that only the best quality fruit goes into our pneumatic presses, which we set at less than 2kg/cm2 of pressure.

A week before harvest we created a “pied de cuve” by hand-picking enough grapes to make 1000 litres of juice, which is left to ferment naturally. This provides us with a stock of active, natural yeasts ready to use as soon as the new vintage arrives. All of our wines are made this way, from Petit Chablis to our Fourchaume “Héritage”. 

We are perfectly happy with wines that achieve 12° naturally, without the addition of sugar to boost the alcoholic degree, in order to express the full aromatic potential of each parcel. 

We firmly believe that minerality is the signature of Chablis and our winemaking is managed accordingly. Depending on the vintage, we will use between 10 - 35% of barrels, replacing a proportion each year, so that the imprint of the new oak is barely perceptible. We blend the oak-aged wines with those that have been aged in stainless steel tanks to achieve the perfect balance. We appreciate the body and complexity that is achieved from oak ageing, however, it can also lead to a more oxidative character than wines aged in stainless steel tanks. Oak should never dominate and the wines aged in stainless steel bring a freshness and vivacity to the blend. 

Cold stabilisation is often used to remove the risk of tartaric precipitation, however, we prefer not to use this method, as we feel that it tires the wines unnecessarily. As a result, you may occasionally find small crystals in the bottom of our bottles if they have spent a long time in the fridge. This is 100% natural and doesn’t in any way affect the quality of the wine. Similarly, whenever possible, we prefer not to filter our wines to enhance quality. If we are required to filter, we do so very gently, just before bottling, to preserve the natural nuances of each terroir. 

Purity, delicacy, precision, structure, balance, typicity and terroir expression are the characteritics we are looking for to signed the wines Le Domaine d'Henri; built to age well for years. The oldest vineyards with the best sun orientation bring us the minerality which is the true signature of Chablis. 

When Henri opened a bottle of his cherished Fourchaume, he used to say “Chablis, that’s the purest expression of chardonnay !”