Our family estate
In 1990, Marc Guerin established on the family estate after his father Raymond. The estate was doing polyculture (cereal, vines, goat breeding) back in the days. Marc decided to cease the goat breeding activity and replanted 2 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc in the parcels called Les Cris and les Chailloux, both situated on Bannon’s hillside. Since that date, the estate grew over the years and has now reached a total surface area of 12 hectares.
Since the activity restarted, Marc decided to vinify each parcel separately to express the great diversity of terroir of the Sancerre wine area. In this way, we can express a huge assortment of flavours through our 4 white wines, our 2 red wines and our 2 rosé wines, each one of them embodying a specific terroir and various winemaking techniques (like the aging process made in oak barrels for example).
Our estate works a lot with private individuals, whether it’s in our cellar in Bannon or in collaboration with local markets and wine fairs.
Nowadays, the estate is looking forward to the future. Baptiste, Marc and Sylvaine’s son, chose to come back at the estate after graduating with a technical degree (BTS) in viticulture and oenology. He’s innovating by providing new technics among the estate, which are going to create new ranges of wines, and, as a result, brand new and modern expressions of the Sancerre wine area!
The “Terroirs”
Among the long process of making wine, everything starts from the grapes. The fruits are different each year depending on the climate, the weather, the diseases and so on, and these changes (whether they’re good or bad) are going to add unique nuances to wines. However, there is one thing that never changes: the soil (in that case, there are various types of soils in the area) where the vine plants grow.
On the hillside of Bannon, there is a large variety of terroirs. During the middle Ages, the monks from the Abbey of Saint-Satur had already started to plant vines in the area.
The most abundant terroirs are the one with soils composed of clay and limestone, and this specific feature, which gives us some really fruity wines and enhances the typical expression of traditional Sancerre wines. We also have some flint soils, which are going to create some tense and mineral wines. This type of soils also gives that specific bright flavour that we call “gunflint flavour”.
Lastly, we also have some more geologically irregular parcels which combine both clay-limestone and flint soils, and this particular blending creates some really atypical and very expressive wines. The rest of the story happens in the wine cellar.
Our story
A family estate since the 17th century.
Our family have been growing vines in the Sancerre region since the 17th century. Initially, we were based in the Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre village. In the middle of the 18th century, François Guérin (1736-1806) and his wife moved in Vinon, only 3 kilometres away on Bannon’s hillside where they continued to cultivate vine plants.
One century after, in 1898, the marriage between François-Joseph Guérin and Jeanne Chevalier was an important date for the estate. Indeed, Jeanne’s father, Pierre-Alexandre Chevalier, brought numerous parcels of vines to the estate, which helped to establish a good part of the estate’s current structure. This is why we decided to pay him a tribute through a cuvee (The Pierre-Alexandre cuvee).
After this period of prosperity, a difficult century passed: The phylloxera crisis at the end of the 19th century and the two World Wars had a huge impact in the wine world, and unfortunately, the Sancerre region wasn’t spared.
After these tumultuous times, back in 1990, when Marc came back on the estate, there was only half a hectare of vines left. Marc decided to replant 2 hectares of vines on two beautiful parcels: Les Cris and les Chailloux.
In 30 years, the estate has grown a lot and expanded to a total surface of 12 hectares. These extensions were essentially made by planting new parcels over the years and by retaking the tenancies that once belonged to Raymond, Marc’s father.
Our Philosophy
“Our viticulture is both
rigorous and respectful”
Our viticulture is both rigorous and respectful. Over the years, whether it was under the rules of the HVE certification (Haute Valeur Environnementale, or High Environmental Value) or not, we’ve been striving to reduce the doses of pest control products little by little, without endangering the sustainability of our vines. We’ve been one of the first estates to adapt our product doses so they can remain pertinent since the beginning of the launch of precision agriculture in the 2000’s, first in the fields and then in the vineyards.
We do want to continue in this direction for the coming years: we wish to keep the HVE certification despite the upcoming reinforcements of the said certification, which will definitely lead our estate to set the bar higher.
All of our vinifications are guided through the winemaking process by a common willpower: the constant search for quality and the respect for terroirs of our wine region. That’s why all of our plots are vinified separately. Indeed, this allows us to keep more freedom over the winemaking process and to maximise our creativity: for example, we can vinify only one parcel, or decide to do a blending of several parcels, we can use different species of yeasts, different winemaking techniques…
That’s where lies winemakers’ happiness: They create their wines not only with techniques, but also with a lot of joy.
Our philosophy is overall very simple to sum up: We want to make tasty wines that you’ll love as much as we do while preserving the environment and the authenticity of our terroirs.
Our values
“A never-ending quest of quality, from the vines to the cellar, from pruning to bottling, this is our motto.”
We are dedicated to produce a wine that pleases our customers and us. A never-ending quest of quality, from the vines to the cellar, from pruning to bottling, this is our motto. We are committed to preserve our environment and its biodiversity, which are the wealth of our region.
To do so, Marc was one of the first winemakers to engage in sustainable agriculture. His rigorous and respectful work helped us to apply for the HVE certification in 2018. Since then, our hard fought efforts allowed us to acquire the highest level of the certification in 2021. For us, it’s a way to gain recognition through the way we’ve been working for a long time.
Our harvests
“The harvest is the most important part of the wine-making process, this is where everything is at stake and where the winemaker’s expertise shines the most.”
Even if wine tends to evolve constantly, the harvest is the most important part of the winemaking process, this is where everything is at stake and where the winemaker’s expertise shines the most.
In our estate, each parcel is vinified separately. This way, we can have a better control over the expression of our terroirs. We can enhance each characteristic of the selected plot at its best, and we can also play around with different factors of the process: the species of yeasts used, the temperature, the winemaking techniques like winding (remontage in French), the aging process…
As for the Sauvignon blanc variety (which composes all of our white wines), we harvest when the grapes reach their full ripeness, and sometimes, we wait until they’re slightly over matured for some specific cuvees.
We’re lucky to be able to harvest close to our wine cellar, it’s a great advantage because the grapes are delivered at the right temperature and fast enough to preserve them. After the harvest, the fruits are carefully pressed to extract the most interesting aromas (we use 2 wine presses for that), then, we lower the temperature to ensure a very fine settling (débourbage), and once the must (specific term for the grape juice) is clear, the fermentation can start.
As for our red wines, they’re all made out the Pinot Noir variety. The grapes are fully de-stemmed, and they are all sorted before vatting. The fruits are then going through a cold pre-fermentation maceration (the temperature of the grapes is lowered to 10°C to prevent them from fermenting, this process also enables a better extraction of the colour, which then gives wines with a beautiful deep red hue). This technique lasts 4 days on average, right before starting the fermentation process. The wine is swirled around the tank moderately, with just a few windings (remontage) per day.
Thanks to this process, we manage to extract the right amount of colour components and aromas, and we end up with wines that can easily be drunk even in their youngest years, they indeed remain very enjoyable and expressive. Moreover, they have a very pleasing aging potential, which means that you can let them age from 5 to 7 years. During this period of time, they improve a lot and develop a smoother texture on the palate and well-evolved aromas.
