For 10 generations, the Bourgeois family has devoted its passion and values to Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir to craft wines of unique expression.
The Famille Bourgeois has been in love with Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc for 10 generations. The domaine covers 72 hectares of the best terroir in the Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé appellations. Brought to fruition by Henri Bourgeois over 50 years ago, the vineyards lie on some of the most rugged hillside terrains, offering the best exposures in the Loire Valley.
The Story Of A Family
Their story is told over 10 generations of winegrowers in Sancerre, in the village of Chavignol. A family that cultivates an attachment, daring, and commitment to reveal the great terroirs of the appellation.The same values drive them each day:
- Passion, spurred on by effort, perfectionism, and the desire to give life to wine.
- A calling to express all the aspects of Sancerre, its identities born of terroirs rich in variety.
- A celebration of the Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir varietals.
Although the Bourgeois family’s ancestors already had a passion for vines and creating wines, the main figurehead at a turning point in the family’s history was Henri Bourgeois. In the 1950s, Henri moved his attention from cultivating his two hectares on the slopes of Chavignol to concentrate on growing vines in an unknown area. Fortunately, this unknown area produced wines of high quality, to which Henri gave his name.
Henri’s sons, Jean-Marie and Rémi, joined him in the 1960s and continued the adventure. They discovered new terroirs, bought land, developed partnerships with other Sancerre families, and turned themselves into ambassadors for Sancerre’s reputation in France, then abroad.
Today, Arnaud, Lionel, and Jean-Christophe Bourgeois are the initiators of vines’ futures and wines of the house.
Terroirs
Across a mosaic of several dozen plots of land spread across 72 hectares, the Famille Bourgeois illustrates all the nuances and reliefs of the flavours of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.It imagines its wines and tells their stories starting from their roots, which go deep into the heart of three types of soil present in the vineyard:
- Clay-limestone, which gives rise to fresh, fruity vintages.
- Kimmeridgian marls, the memories of fossilised shells from the Jurassic Era that give intense flavours of exotic fruits and a superb structure.
- Flint, which initiates elegant wines with smoky, roasted notes and minerality of great finesse.
These fresh terroirs of the Loire give rise to wines with a great mineral feeling.
Their Philosophy
A family working together, expressing its vivacity and its own generous personalities through its wines, which are now naturally associated with the name of “Famille Bourgeois”.
“Our philosophy of life and work celebrates the good, the beautiful, and the true, in the extreme accuracy of our viticulture and our winemaking, in respect for the environment, as well as in the generous aromas of the vintages that will foster sociable tasting sessions.
Being a winemaker in Sancerre is to love sharing moments when sometimes the slopes are swept by the wind while at others they are bathed in sunlight, and to tell you of those moments through wine.” — Famille Bourgeois.
