schiller-wine: Vineyard Tour, Cellar Tour and Tasting at Domaine Gadais Père et Fils, in Saint Fiacre-sur-Maine, Muscadet Sévre et Maine, Pays Nantais, with Christoph Gadais

The Loire Tour 2025 by ombiasy WineTours took place from Sunday, October 5 to Thursday, October 16, 2025. The tour started in Nantes and ended in Sancerre, with a bus transfer and lunch in Paris. There were 9 of us including Annette and myself.

Following:

Vineyard Tour, Cellar Tour and tasting at Maison Chéreau Carré, AOP Muscadet Sèvre et Maine, with Bernard Chéreau - Loire Valley 2025 by ombiasy WineTours

"Formule du Midi" at Chez Pipette, Auberge Bistronomique, in La Haie-Fouassiere - Loire Valley 2025 bu ombiasy WineTours

we went to Domaine Gadais Père et Fils, in Saint Fiacre-sur-Maine, Muscadet Sévre et Maine, Pays Nantais, for a vineyard tour, cellar tour and tasting.

In fact, there were 2 domaines under one roof: Domaine Gadais Père et Fils and Domaine de la Combe. Both domaines are owned by Christoph Gadais and by his some Pierre-Henri Gadais. The former is the family domaine with a long tradition. The latter is a a new venture going into the organic/ natural wine direction, with Pierre-Henri Gadais taking the lead.

Domaine Gadais Père et Fils wines are imported by Peter Weygandt and Domaine de la Combe by terresblanchewines of Cason Love in Richmond, Virginia, a former employee of Peter Weygandt.

Owner/ Winemaker Christoph Gadais was our host.

Loire 2025 by ombiasy WineTours led by Annette Schiller

Annette Schiller in her announcement: What comes to your mind when you hear ‘Loire Valley’? Of course images of glorious Châteaux pop up in your mind. Yes that is true and we will visit some iconic château and dig deep into France’s history. However, during this wine tour we also discover a magnificent, but often overlooked French wine region and one of the most exciting best kept secrets of excellent, high quality wines at very reasonable prices. The Loire Valley wine region is a vast area and consists of several distinct wine regions, each with its own characteristic grapes, appellations, and wine style. We take you on a journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Auvergne mountains to explore this unique region. We learn to appreciate “Sancerre”, "Pouilly-Fumé", “Vouvray", “Chinon”, as well as many other not so familiar appellations.

Domaine Gadais Père et Fils, in Saint Fiacre-sur-Maine, Muscadet Sévre et Maine, Pays Nantais (ombiasy WineTours)

The domaine exists as a mixed farming estate since before the French Revolution. In 1947 Louis Gadais decided to concentrate only on wine production. In 1958 they wrote history when Franck Schoonmaker, an importer of high-quality French wines paid them a visit and started to import Gadais Muscadet wines into the US.

Today it is Christoph Gadais, fifth generation, and his son Pierre-Henri Gadais, great-grandson of two brilliant Loire winemakers – Louis Gadais in the Muscadet region and Henri Bourgeois in the Sancerre region (whom we will visit on the last day of this wine tour) who are running the domaine. Pierre-Henri pushes the domaine into a new direction: while training abroad he gained interest in organic and biodynamic agriculture and they farm sustainably now.

The 125 acres of vineyards are exclusively planted with the Melon de Bourgogne grape and are divided into 100 small parcels to show the specific terroir. “It is the richness and geological diversity, as well as limited yields, that have earned the estate its reputation today” the Gadais family says.

Domaine Gadais Père et Fils (Domaine Gadais Père et Fils)

The beginning of the story

A long time ago, besides their own professions, people in rural France all farmed to provide for their families. The polyculture that took place in the countryside at the time very often allowed for a small amount of wine production for day-to-day consumption.

Because of this, when we traced back our family tree we found an ancestor who was a ploughman before the French Revolution. But it was Louis Gadais, a gardener's son at the time, who decided in 1947 to concentrate his activity on wine production. An observant man with an unmatched palate, and a businessman at heart, his ambition was to do more than just produce an average wine. For him, going from tending vines to commercial bottle sales was the realisation of his passion. He was one of the first winemakers in Nantes to bottle his wines: at that time, winemakers produced wine in bulk and sold it all at the cooperative. It was only a matter of time before his wine would be marketed and exported.

The Development of the Estate with Michel & Marcel

In 1958, Franck Schoonmaker, a trailblazer in the importation of high-quality French wines, paid a visit to Louis to purchase his wines. The following year, Domaine Gadais wines were already appearing on tables in New York.

The story continues with the arrival of Louis’ sons Michel and Marcel, who would go on to develop the estate. The acquisition of coveted land in La Faubretière in 1973 further improved the quality of the wines. Thanks to low yields, contrary to the trend at the time, the quality of their wines was recognised on an international scale, by renowned importers such as Robert Chadderdon in the USA.

The diversification of the portfolio with Christophe

In 1994 Christophe Gadais, having returned from work experience in Sancerre and outside of France, took the reins of the estate and developed the production portfolio, which had until then been composed of only one wine, a blend.

Committed to adding value to the estate’s agricultural heritage, he decided to diversify the portfolio. The Grande Réserve des Moulins was created in the 94 vintage: at the time, it was a selection from the terroirs of Les Masses and La Faubretière.

The legendary cuvée Vieilles Vignes was launched in the 96 vintage, made from vines in Ménardières, and the Perrières Monopole launched in the 2009 vintage also contributed to the development of a coherent and diversified range of Muscadet.

A new approach to the wines with Pierre Henri

In 2016, Pierre-Henri Gadais, son of Christopher and, notably, great-grandson of 2 winemakers from the Loire – Louis Gadais in the Muscadet region and Henri Bourgeois in Sancerre – returned to the estate.

After studying viticulture and winemaking in Burgundy and Bordeaux, he decided to travel to gain innovative experience abroad. He travelled to California, Australia, England, and New Zealand, but it was in Switzerland that he gained an interest in organic and biodynamic agriculture: a new approach to wine, with the objective of respecting raw materials and limiting interventions to reduce the addition of sulphur.

Today, the story continues with the construction of a semi-underground, gravity-fed cellar. There is no shortage of projects to continually showcase our terroir, our expertise, and our varietal wine.

Domaine de la Combe (terresblanchewines)

In the village of Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, on the banks of the Sèvre, not far from its union with the Maine, Pierre-Henri Gadais of Domaine de la Combe is producing some of the most exciting wines coming out of the Muscadet region today.

Descended from the Bourgeois family (Domaine Henri Bourgeois) in Sancerre on his mother’s side and the fifth generation of the Gadais family (Gadais Père et Fils) to produce wine from the rolling hills surrounding Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine, Pierre-Henri was perhaps destined to be a vigneron. In the Muscadet region the Gadais family has long been synonymous with high quality production, with legendary importers Frank Schoonmaker, Robert Chadderdon, and now Peter Weygandt bringing the wines of Gadais family to the United States.

Growing up in the vines and cellar of his father and grandfather, Pierre-Henri received quite the education from a very early age. It would have been easy to return to the family Domaine after earning his Viticulture & Enology degree in Burgundy, but Pierre-Henri chose a different path. To gain a better understanding of the international wine trade, he studied Wine Business in Bordeaux for 2 years, followed by a year in California working in wine distribution. After the completion of his studies, Pierre-Henri worked for several years as an apprentice winemaker in Australia, Switzerland, Burgundy, Pomerol, Sancerre, and back in Muscadet at Domaine de la Pépière.

Finally in 2016 he returned to Saint-Fiacre-sur-Maine to work with his father Christophe at Gadais Père et Fils. However, simply coming into the family business was not enough for the talented young vigneron and soon Pierre-Henri was looking to start a project of his own. The perfect opportunity came in the form of Les Grands Presbytères, a nine-hectare Domaine started in the 1920’s by the Marzelleau family. In 2009 Nelly Marzelleau, the current generation, was looking to step back from the day to day running of Les Grands Presbytères and contracted with her neighbor, Christophe Gadais, to farm the vineyards and make the wines. From the 2009 to 2015 vintage, Christophe Gadais made the wines for the Marzelleau family under the Les Grands Presbytères label. In 2016, with the blessing of his father, Pierre-Henri purchased the vines and the cellar, rechristening it Domaine de la Combe.

Immediately Pierre-Henri began the task of enhancing the unique terroir and reorganizing the Domaine towards the production of multiple quality-oriented cuvees. He later added some adjoining parcels, bringing the total to 15 hectares. Domaine de la Combe is unique in that all the Domaine’s vines are in a single block. The vines lie within the lieu dit of La Pétière, and rest on a gentle hillside known as the Butte de la Combe. There are 3 distinct terroirs in the Butte de la Combe: orthogneiss on the summit, gneiss on the southern slopes, and schist on the northern slopes. The Domaine has a good mix of young and old vines with the oldest being planted in the 1950’s and youngest as recent as 2016. The spraying of herbicides and pesticides was stopped in 2016 and the conversion to Organic viticulture began in 2017. Work in the vines is done according to the lunar cycle and, as of the 2021 vintage, all the Domaine’s holdings are certified Organic.

In the cellar, much is done in a traditional way with vinification and long ageing on the lees in subterranean glass tanks. However, there are also notable differences. Unlike many of his counterparts in the region who inoculate with cultivated yeasts, Pierre-Henri relies solely on wild indigenous yeasts for a spontaneous, natural fermentation. Work in the cellar is done according to the lunar cycle, and only one sulfur addition is made at the completion of alcoholic fermentation. A light filtration is made prior to bottling to avoid further sulfur additions. Pierre-Henri has also begun to experiment with oak ageing (Vigne de l’Astrée), light skin contact (Vendange Nocturne), and vinification without the additional of sulfur (Zeste).

Only in his early thirties, it’s exciting to think about where Pierre-Henri will be in five, ten, and twenty years. He is constantly experimenting and pushing boundaries, but also firmly rooted in the tradition of his forebearers. It’s an honor to know Pierre-Henri Gadais and to sell his wines.