Vincent Leclair

The Loire’s Not-So-Small Artisan Winemaker

Quick Facts

• Location: Touraine AOC Region, Loire Valley, France
• Head Winemaker: Vincent Leclair
• Planted area: 64 hectares 
• Annual production: 200,000 bottles 
• Varieties: ~50% Sauvignon Blanc, 25% Gamay, and the remainder a blend of Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, Grolleau, Menu Pineau, Merlot (Côt), Pineau d’Aunis, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Meslier-Saint-François.
• Age of Vines: Vincent farms 100+ year old Pineau d’Aunis vines planted by his grandfather; Gamay averages 40 years; Sauvignon Blanc averages 15 years. Other varieties range from 40 to 100+ years.
• Soil: Two distinct plots, “Les Perruches” (Chenonceaux terroir made up of clay-quartz soil with limestone underneath) and “Les Bournais” (higher clay content).
• Vineyard Management: Certified  Organic 
• Winemaking: Low Intervention. Vincent believes his domain is the largest one in the region to have adopted a ‘natural’ approach. 

Fun Facts

• Vincent’s vineyards are surrounded by a diversity of forest life: beech, acacia, oak and chestnut trees, along with hares, roe deer, and local birds like stone-curlews and woodcocks.
• Eight full-time employees make up Vincent’s team. Among them, Nathalie handles orders and admin, nearing her 30th year at the domain; Bruno has managed the vineyard for 10; and Carlos has been Vincent’s “right arm” in the cellar for 22 years.
• Music abounds here: Vincent plays it in the cellar, in the shower, and in the car. A few favorites are Radiohead, Depeche Mode, U2, 50cent, Aznavour and Paul Kalkbrenner. 
• In the rare moments when Vincent isn’t with his wines and vines, he loves to read with his cat on his lap, play tennis, and take days off to spend with his daughter or on the water in Brittany. 
• Future dreams include a family-friendly tourist bike route through the vineyard, complete with commentary. Above all, Vincent hopes “to inspire young people with our history, our expertise, and a new way of consuming: tasting and sharing a good glass of wine!”

Jump to wines

For someone with a not-so-small winery, Vincent Leclair has a small-winemaker way of doing things. His daughter Emy is as central to his story as his own childhood, much of which he spent helping his parents with the winery that has now been in their family for four generations. While it was ultimately the birth of his daughter that would call him back to the domain — a desire to instill the right values in her life, and bring greater meaning to his own — Vincent says he never stopped thinking about those formative years among the vines.

“I always enjoyed the vineyard work the most,” says Vincent. “I was intoxicated by the smells, the landscapes, and the taste of ripening grapes before harvest. But I also saw the disasters caused by a hailstorm, or a frost — not only on the plants but on my parents’ morale. As a teenager, I didn’t feel I could take that on.” It wasn’t until the age of 29, after a stint as an IT project manager with a degree in computer science, that Vincent decided to return.

Today, Vincent’s work is inspired by all those chapters. Back in school for oenology and viticulture, he was exposed to farming principles that respect the environment by making the littlest impact possible, an approach that reminded him of his grandfather’s way of doing things. Vincent would watch him “farm organically without knowing it,” working the soil to allow the vines to root deeply and foregoing insecticides to invite biodiversity.When Vincent officially took over the domain in 2014, going organic was the obvious choice.

It was not, however, the easy choice. It took years to gather the right tools piece by piece (notably an electric tractor in 2023), to plant flower gardens between the vines, install bird houses and natural hedges, and aerate the soil as his grandfather had done. Techniques we’re used to hearing about from small winegrowers — but in Vincent’s case, the extra care is multiplied across 64 planted hectares. “Working in this way doesn’t come without risk, and it takes an enormous amount of work,” he says, “but in the changing climate, my choice is reinforced.” Compared to those of his peers, his vines have proven more resilient to drought and heat.

The majority of his vines are Sauvignon Blanc and Gamay, foundational Loire varieties that express the fruit-forward, smile-inducing character he loves. The remaining field blend, which includes his grandfather’s 100-year-old Pineau d’Aunis and rare native grapes like Meslier-Saint-François (related to Chenin Blanc) and Orbois (Menu Pineau), is used in Crémant de Loire, Chenonceaux Rouge, and limited single-variety cuvées. Vincent cites the vineyard’s surrounding forests and proximity to the ocean, whose salty breeze reaches the vines, as distinctive features of his terroir.

Leclair brings the low-intervention mindset with him into the cellar, where the priority is to let the grapes express themselves as purely as possible. Luckily, the cave he inherited was fully stocked with underground concrete tanks, naturally temperature controlled and perfect for working with gravity as opposed to the pump. A self-sourced pneumatic press lets him handle the grapes gently and with less risk of oxidation, reducing the need for additives. In the end, Vincent says that he’s chasing the very same flavors he knew when he was young: the taste of ripe grapes right before harvest, influenced only by cépage and terroir.

When it comes to quality, Vincent is particularly passionate — and outspoken in his support of Touraine-Chenonceaux, the more stringent appellation (est. 2011) within AOP Touraine. Winemakers had long made their best cuvées along the banks of the Cher River, and they felt the exceptional terroir should gain more recognition. They set elite standards: lower yields, a ban on chemical weeding, mandatory aging on the lees, and a blind jury who tastes every wine before release. Vincent describes the wines as “gastronomic,” with more richness, length on the palate, and beautiful aromatic finish. Though enamored by the grandeur of it all, Vincent identifies just as much with the AOP Touraine wines; “they’re exactly what I want to offer to people,” he says, “wines that bring pleasure.”

Wines