Reuilly

Grower Profiles

Alain Mabillot
Alain Mabillot is another cereal farmer who diversified into wine in the early 1990s and is a founder member of the Chai de Reuilly. The family’s 300 hectares of arable land are to be found in the hamlet of Villiers-les-Roses on the main Issoudun to Reuilly road. Mabillot bought and planted land in the lieu-dits of Le Conges (next to Clos des Messieurs), Les Thaumières and Mont Cocu in 1990, harvesting his first crop the year before the Chai de Reuilly has been completed.

He was joined by his son, Mathieu, in 2008 who came back to the Berry at 30 years of age having studying marketing in Bordeaux and gaining experience by working stages at Château Lynch-Bages (during the 2001 vintage), Torbreck in the Barossa and at Cain in Napa. He also worked as a sales representative for a wine glass supplier in Bordeaux, so comes back to Reuilly with a broad set of skills.

So, this father and son team now work a total of 5.5 hectares of vines: 2.7ha of Sauvignon, a single hectare of Pinot Gris (planted on the sand and gravel soils of Le Conges) and 1.7ha of Pinot Noir. Until 2007 Alain produced a single expression of each of the three varieties grown, but with Matthieu’s arrival, a single vineyard Sauvignon, from Mont Cocu at the southern end of the appellation, was introduced from the 2008 vintage. This receives a maceration on its skins during a five hour pressing cycle.

Mathieu was kind enough at our meeting at the Chai de Reuilly (in June 2010) to open up some older examples of his fathers wines. It would be fair to say that they were a mixed bunch, but many of the white wines at least showed the characteristics of their specific vintage. The Sauvignons proved more successful than the red wines, which clearly had not benefited from time in bottle. In terms of the current vintage, the wines suffer a little from 2009 syndrome, being a little too rich and concentrated for them to be considered correctly balanced. These are decent, workable wines but with a dynamic force now behind them. It will be interesting to see Matthieu’s influence on the domaine going forward. 

Alain et Mathieu Mabillot
3 Chemin de l’Orme
Villiers les Roses
Sainte-Lizaigne
T: + 33 2 54 04 02 09
F: + 33 2 54 04 01 33
Alain.mabillot@wanadoo.fr
Mathieu.mabillot@orange.fr

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