History
Writing a new history in a place steeped in history.
A creation and a revival at once: building an estate in its own right, where the land holds a deep winegrowing memory.
01 The Château des Labourons
Vines have overlooked the village since 1875
The Château des Labourons is one of the founding sites of the Fleurie appellation. Its vines have overlooked the village since 1875, on the granite heights where Gamay expresses one of its most accomplished forms. For more than a century, several families, including the Lescure family, cultivated, vinified and handed down here. A time when the wines of Fleurie graced the finest tables, prized for their elegance and their ability to age.
Over time, the estate fragmented. Parcels changed hands, the original unity dissolved. But the land itself remained.
02 A childhood dream become an estate
A calling, shaped very early
M. Hauger grew up in a neighbouring village, alongside a winegrower grandfather. The vine was part of the family air, from one generation to the next. Holidays among the rows, the harvests, the gestures passed on without ever being named: all of it shaped, very early, a calling.
It is not simply taking over an estate. It is walking in someone's footsteps, in one's own words.
The estate's coat of arms bears the arms of the two families, that of the father and that of the grandfather, brought together in a single crest. Two legacies, one shared passion.
03 The meeting
It all comes together at a meal marking the end of the harvest. It is 11 p.m., the glasses have gone round. M. Fargeaud and M. Hauger find themselves side by side at the table, without ulterior motive.
They talk of wine, of the vine, of vision. Of what Beaujolais once was, of what it could become again.
And then Alain looks at M. Hauger and says:
“I like your vision of wine. Call me back.”M. Fargeaud
A few weeks later, an estate began to take shape.
04 The duo
M. Hauger
M. Hauger carries the vine, the cellar and the wines. He is the one who observes, who vinifies, who decides the style, with the precision of someone who knows his parcels from the inside.
M. Fargeaud
M. Fargeaud carries the structure, the strategy and the running of the business. An outsider's eye on the world of wine, but a rigour and a vision that allow the project to stand firm and grow.
What unites them? A concrete, grounded project that makes sense. We start from the earth, from a raw material, and carry it toward something noble. Like a great chef working a basic ingredient with absolute exactingness, except that here, the basic ingredient is the soil itself.
To create and to revive
The project is both at once. A creation, because it truly means building an estate in its own right, its own identity, its cuvées, its way of working. A revival, because the place holds a deep winegrowing memory.
The aim is not to reproduce the past, but to give it new meaning and a new direction.
We are writing a new history in a place steeped in history.
What's next
The terroir, parcel after parcel: the patient reconquest of an original estate.