Lacheteau

“The Terroir of the Loire Valley is so rich that Châteaux grow there”

The Position of the Loire AOCs

The success of the AOCs in the Loire Valley wine-growing area contributes to the growth of the global wine market. In fact, these sales are up by 8.2 % compared to a slowing down or even drop in the other wine-producing regions.

Accordingly, sales of Touraine increased by 32.6%, Saumur by 13% and Crémant de Loire by 9.6%.

 

Our properties

Domaine de Champteloup - 100 ha - Anjou AOC

This estate has a long wine-growing tradition, since 400-year-old deeds mention vine cultivation on this estate. All of the traditional Anjou grape varieties are present. Wine production: 5,000 hl.

 

Château de Montguéret - 130 ha - Anjou and Saumur AOCs

This château, located in Anjou, is operated according to “Terra Vitis” specifications (sustained agriculture), whose label may be used for its different productions.
Wine production: 6,500 hl.

Domaine de la Forchetière - 80 ha - Muscadet AOC

An 80-ha estate of vines planted in the Nantes countryside. Muscadet Côtes de Grand lieu/lie and Gros Plant/lie, each representing a volume of 30,000 bottles, are bottled at the château and sold under the “Château de la Forchetière” label.
Wine production: 5,000 hl.

 

Domaine Les Martines - 5 Hectares - AOC Cheverny

Wine production: 200 hl

Modern, high-performance installations

The Loire Valley fermenting rooms operate three wine-producing cellars with 450 grape-growing partners who cover 1,000 hectares of vineyard in the Nantes and Haut-Poitou regions.

With its sites in Alsace and the Jura, the group is the leading French producer using the traditional method, excluding champagne, with a total production of 15 million bottles.

The GCF Group's technical and qualitative expertise and the modern installations are the guarantors of this production.

Monitoring the estates and bottling on the property

One of the specific features of Lacheteau lies in the important share of business devoted to marketing estate-bottled wines (5 to 6 million bottles per year).

This policy is based on long-term work on two key points:

  • monitoring the estates and the quality of the wines,
  • the conditions for bottling on the property, which must be safe and in line with the wines’ organoleptic qualities.

Monitoring the estates

We monitor some one hundred estates over all of the Loire Valley appellations. These estates are selected for their ability to produce quality wines on a regular basis, irrespective of the varying climate conditions, and their desire to work in partnership with Lacheteau.

Some are given multi-annual contracts. The activity of these estates is monitored by planned visits from Lacheteau oenologists at key times in the wine-growing process and the ensuing wine production. They also organise more occasional technical meetings bringing together grape growers from the same area.

The blends are created through a rigorous selection of wines, vat by vat.

Bottling conditions

A large part of our estate bottling is done by our own lorry; the rest is sub-contracted to a partner bottler working according to our specifications. Our exacting quality standards on the property are the same as for our merchant-bottled wines and the procedures and controls are thus identical to them.

For the whites and rosés, we aim for “zero yeast” in the bottle thanks to 0.65 micron filtration and pre-bottling sterilisation procedures. For the Loire reds, we only filter the wines before bottling at 1.5 microns in order to preserve their organoleptic qualities and we check after bottling that there is a low germ content to ensure their stability. Our bottling service includes preparing the wines for bottling, in which we work in an oxygen-free atmosphere to prevent loss of quality before packaging.

The commercialisation of Lacheteau products

As for all wine merchant companies, the share of sales to traditional clientele is decreasing within a market that is itself in constant decline. Wine consumption has dropped by 40% over the past few decades: we are drinking less but better. We are therefore observing a significant drop in table wines to the benefit of celebratory wines (vins de pays and appellations). Lacheteau is present in all of the distribution niches. However, mass distribution now represents approximately 80% of wine commercialisation in France.

Lacheteau is seeing its market share increasing, as the company offers:

  • vinification products that correspond to what distribution wants as a product in the bottles with its label: the quality of the wine chosen is constant for a given vintage;
  • estate wines because of its leadership in estate bottling;
  • own brand wines. This evolution can be summarised as follows: Lacheteau is moving towards improving the quality of its low-cost generic wines while boosting the sales of its high-end products.
    This evolution and its wine-making centres synonymous with quality have allowed Lacheteau to create for itself a positive image in distribution.

A little History

1990: creation of the company Vinival - Nowadays, Lacheteau

Vinival was created in 1990 by Jean Babonneau and Christian Ceccaldi after the acquisition in 1988 of three small-sized merchants in Loire Valley and Château Champteloup wines. The same year, the two founders enriched the group with Château de la Forchetière and formed the SOFIVAL holding.

 

1994: Merger with Rolandeau

The grouping with this bulk wine producer marked the beginning of a series of strategic purchases. In 1996, Vinival bought the "Marquis de Goulaine" brand, and then "Marcel Roussely" in 1997.

 

1997: new investors in the capital

In the light of continually increasing T/O since its creation, Vinival aroused interest from investors. Agro Plus and Ouest Croissance acquired shares in the company of 11% and 3% respectively. Individual investors represent 3% of the shares, SOFIVAL retaining 83% of its capital.

 

2004: Acquisition of Vinival by Les Grands Chais de France

The Les Grands Chais de France group put in a bid for the Nantes vine-growing and wine-producing holding SOFIVAL (Vinival) in July 2004.

 

2005: the GCF Group bought the company Lacheteau,

based in Anjou, near Saumur.

There were a number of reasons for the Lacheteau buyout:

  • development of the Loire activity and critical size improvement in this region,
  • desire to launch a Crémant de Loire activity and other traditional methods (Vouvray, Saumur, etc.), already in existence at Lacheteau,
  • development of estate wines, the good image of the Lacheteau brand.

 

 

In 2006: All of the Group’s entities located in the Loire Valley merged under the Lachateau name

2007: acquisition of Roger Félicien Brou.

This company, which generated a turnover of approximately 4.5 million euros in 2006, specialises in Traditional Method Vouvray AOCs.

The primary objective of the buyout was to complement the product strategy since the development of the “Loire Valley” division. The declared aim is to expand the sparkling wine offering and in particular offer Vouvray, which is in great demand on the French market.

 

A few figures

The Loire Valley figures

  • Leading white wine producer.
  • Leading AOC region for wine with fine bubbles (excluding champagne).
  • 3rd largest wine-growing area in France in terms of its production:
    4,000,000 hl, including 3,000,000 hl of VQPRD (quality wine produced in specified regions).
  • 4th largest wine-growing area in France in terms of its surface area: 70,000 ha, including 52,000 ha of VQPRD.
  • 63 Appellations d'Origine Contrôlée, 400 Million bottles.

 

Production Capacities

  • Surface area of the site: 5 hectares.
  • Covered area: 28,000 m2.
  • 5 bottling lines.
  • 1 mobile château-bottling line.
  • 1 Bag-in-Box line.
  • Fermenting room capacity: 231,000 hl.
  • Warehouse: 11,000 m2.



In January 2004, Vinival also invested in screw top equipment.

The total bottling capacity amounts to 60 million bottles per year.

The company is IFS (International Food Standard) and BRC certified.

 

Breakdown of the site’s personnel by broad function (end of 2007)

Sales/sales management/marketing:
22
Corporate/administrative services: 22
Production/operations: 136
Wine-growing operations: 36
Total: 216

  

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