Domain and cellar

Domain

The 18th century Château du Hureau perches up on a cliff looking out over the Loire. Complete with an octagonal tower, a troglodytic pigeon loft, a little tower sticking up out of the vines and of course its rock-hewn cellar, it really is quite exceptional – and well worth a visit! We would be delighted to welcome you here.

The tuffe limestone cellar

As its name implies, the village of Dampierre (pierre = stone!) was first known for the tuffe limestone that was extracted from the hillsides. Here, all the cellars were dug-out by hand, the first ones more than a thousand years ago, and ours is just one part of a huge underground labyrinth. The stone extracted was either sold or used for building and the resulting cellars were turned into shelters for the cattle and storage for the harvests, including of course the wine. The cellars offered perfect conditions for making and storing the local wines – high levels of humidity and a constant, cool temperature. When I took over the running of the estate in 1987 my first decision had to be whether or not to build a new building outside to house my new vats or to put them in the cellar. After much deliberation I chose the second option and haven’t regretted it one minute. It’s not possible to explain everything scientifically when it comes to wine-making, as too many factors come into play, but I’m convinced that we wouldn’t make exactly the same wines in an outdoor  building – maybe its something to do with the mould growing on the cellar walls, witness to a thousand vintages of wines...