Since joining the Bollinger Group in 2022, Domaine Hubert Brochard has been quietly transforming itself. With the 2024 vintage of Château de Fontaine-Audon, the Maison de Chavignol delivers not just a Sancerre, but the liquid proof of a change of method.
The year 2024 was not kind to the Sancerre vineyards. Between a rainy winter, a spring marked by the pressure of mildew and a flowering period disrupted by the wind, the climatology imposed a drastic selection and low yields. Yet it is precisely in the face of these constraints that Domaine Hubert Brochard has chosen to assert its new technical rigor. This vintage lays the foundations for an approach in which viticulture, now certified or in conversion to organic on 21 hectares, takes precedence over volume.
Technical breakthrough
Far from the appellation’s usual emphasis on speed, site manager Rodrigo Zamorano has orchestrated a more complex ageing process. The break with the previous vintage is clear: whereas 2023 was vinified entirely in stainless steel, 2024 introduces a partition of containers. While stainless steel remains in the majority (75%) to preserve tension, 22% of the juice is aged in old French oak barrels and 3% in amphoras.
This diversification aims to give depth to a raw material concentrated by a cool summer and slow ripening. The winemaking process is also stretching out: the ageing period has been extended to eight months, two more than the previous year, to give the wine time to mature.
Geology without limestone
Château de Fontaine-Audon owes its uniqueness to a geological anomaly for the region: the absence of limestone. Located to the east of Sainte-Gemme-en-Sancerrois, the vines are anchored in flinty soil resting on compact red clay. This configuration, documented by soil pits dug since 2022, induces a strict, vertical minerality dictated by silica.
The work in the cellar, including gravity pressing without de-stemming and parcel-by-parcel fermentations in small vats, has the sole aim of translating this mineral austerity without masking it. The result is a wine for ageing, marked by structuring acidity and notes of gunflint, testimony to a terroir that is unforgiving of improvisation.
With a new gravity-fed winery due to open for the 2025 vintage, this 2024 acts as a transitional manifesto: less volume, more time, and greater precision in the gesture.
The detail : Hand sorting With a view to “quality over quantity”, the Domaine has introduced a drastic double sorting system for this vintage. The grapes are first sorted in the vineyard during the manual harvest (from September 23rd to October 2nd), then a second time on a table in the winery. This practice eliminates any doubts about health, so that only healthy fruit is kept.
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