Herve Villemade has family roots in Cellettes, a small town in the Loire Valley of France, going back multiple generations. Since taking over in 1995, he has grown his estate to include the original 8.5ha owned by his parents, an additional 8ha that he has purchased over the years, and the difference being parcels that he rents. At the beginning, the vines were farmed conventionally (as that is they way his parents farmed) using herbicides and fungicides, and the wines were made the same way with lab yeasts and additives.

It wasn’t until a few years later that he tasted wines made by Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais and Thierry Puzelat at Clos du Tue-Bouef in nearby Les Montils that his eyes were opened. Herve immediately began experimenting with zero-sulfur winemaking, but quickly realized that in order to do this, he would need higher quality fruit. This realization led him to begin the arduous task of converting entirely to organic farming starting in 2000 and ultimately shaping the domaine as we know it today.