DOMAINE DE LA BREGEONNETTE
The Orieux family has been farming in and around Vallet for three generations. Stéphane’s maternal grandfather, Marcel Pineau, began growing vines nearby in 1946. In 1964, his father, Joseph Orieux, purchased Domaine de la Bregeonnette, then an old property with just four hectares of vines and thirty hectares of farmland. Joseph moved the vineyards into organic farming long before it was common in Muscadet, eventually receiving Ecocert certification after roughly twenty years of working this way.
Stéphane took over the domaine in 1997 and today farms 19 hectares organically. Melon de Bourgogne remains at the center of the estate, grown largely on the mica-schist soils around Vallet. The work is deliberately traditional: mechanical rather than chemical weed control, hand harvesting, native-yeast fermentation and extended aging on the lees in the underground glass-lined vats typical of the region.
Decades of organic farming give Stéphane an unusually long perspective in a region where these practices were once rare. His wines range from straightforward, fresh Muscadet to single-parcel bottlings given much longer élevage, but the approach is consistent throughout: careful farming, modest yields and enough time on the lees for the vineyards to show clearly.
