Behind The Vines: Landron Chartier
Bernard Landron the founder of Landron Chartier is a third generation winemaker who comes from the Landron family who are deeply rooted within the French world of winemaking. The Landron family are situated in Muscadet Sèvre et Maine which is based around the region of Nantes, Bernard first got involved with making wine as a young lad when he worked with his brother, Jo Chartier. It is believed that working with his older brother Jo is exactly where Bernard began to learn and incorporate his own style in producing wine; you could look at this time in Bernard’s life as a sort of winemaking internship. This work gave Bernard the bug for producing his own wines as apart of his own winery, but due to the outrageous cost of land in his hometown of Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Bernard had to go elsewhere in order to establish his own winery, which he did, to the much more affordable nearby town Ancenis. And so, nineteen years ago during the year of 2002 is when Landron Chartier as an independent winery was officially founded and they began harvesting their own grapes to be initially sold in bulk.
Similar to most dreams that people have, Bernard Landron’s road to producing amazing wine wasn’t just a walk in the park - it took him six years of bulk making wine for probably all sorts of corporations and conventional wineries across the continent before finally making the next step towards producing his own wine to sell under his own official label. He was helped to get to the position he is at in his vigneron career during the year of 2008 when eldest son of the family, and Bernard’s brother Benoît, returned in 2008 after his degree in viticulture and oenology, the two brothers started to bottle their own wine. By the time 2010 had come around Bernard had already begun to convert he and his brother’s entire vineyard over to an organic style of farming - one of the many nuances Bernard learned along his journey in his winemaking internships some twenty years earlier!
Since then, in 2017 they went on to buy and move to a new cellar in the nearby town of Oudon which seems to be much more efficient in handling the ambitious work and projects Landron Chartier have got going on since 2010. The two lads cover up to 25 hectares of land that’s filled with all sorts of mouthwatering (when handled correctly) grape varieties planted included Melon de Bourgogne, Folle Blanche, Pinot Gris, Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon . Then in 2013 they began producing a very lively, exciting range of Pet Nats that go by the name ‘Naturlich’, a sparkling wine project boasting two similar styled Pet Nats with the only major difference being one of which is a sparkling red and the other is a sparkling white - well worth your while doing some extra research and sampling on the ‘Naturlich’ range by Landron Chartier...incredible natural sparkling wines!
Check out the latest Landron Chartier releases here
