The Québécois, the Frontier Hill & the No-Input Hand
Domaine de Montaillant is wine's great crossover story made liquid — a six-hectare estate on the hill of Chasnay, in the Nièvre, in the IGP Côtes de la Charité: a confidential appellation of barely 65 hectares and twelve producers, planted exactly where the Loire Valley ends and Burgundy begins. Its founder, Alexis Hudon, is a Québécois sommelier who crossed the Atlantic in 2014 to work harvests — in Burgundy, and in the Loire at the Domaine des Vignes du Maynes and Domaine Nicolas Reau — before a year in Paris restaurants introduced him to Lise and Bertrand Jousset, with whom he worked three years in intermittence while completing his viti-oeno training. Love took him to Bourges; in 2018 he launched his négoce, buying grapes from like-minded organic growers across the Loire; and in 2021, with his associate Jérôme Loubert, he founded the domaine proper — named for its most important parcel. Today: three hectares of Chardonnay, three of Pinot Noir, on the Jurassic clay-limestone of steep, fault-riven slopes at 300–350 metres. The vines are farmed organically — certified in 2024 — with plant-tea treatments and sap-flow-respecting pruning. The cellar admits no inputs at all beyond a minimal dose of sulphur on the musts; fermentations are native, clarification is by successive racking alone, and everything follows the lunar calendar. From the primeur to the long-élevage cuvées, each bottle aims for the same two words: simplicity and sincerity.
The Atlantic Crossing, the Jousset Years & the Bourges Anchor
Alexis Hudon is, in his own biography's first word, Québécois. A sommelier by training, he crossed the Atlantic in 2014 to immerse himself in French winegrowing — harvests in Burgundy, then in the Loire Valley at two of natural wine's foundational addresses: the Domaine des Vignes du Maynes in the Mâconnais and Nicolas Reau in Anjou. A year in Paris restaurants followed — the cellar side of the trade — where he crossed paths with Lise and Bertrand Jousset, the Montlouis pioneers, and spent three years working with them in intermittence while completing a formal viticulture and oenology formation. The education was complete: Michelin-side service, biodynamic farming, natural cellar craft.
Then love intervened — "par amour, il s'installe à Bourges" — and geography followed. Bourges sits at a crossroads: the Loire's Sauvignon country to the north, the upper Loire's Sancerre and Pouilly to the northeast, Burgundy to the east. In 2018, Alexis launched his négoce, buying grapes — principally from the Loire — from vignerons who shared his values, and vinifying them with the discipline that would become his signature: no inputs, only a minimal dose of sulphur, and a cellar run by the lunar calendar. Three years later, in 2021, the estate chapter began: with his associate Jérôme Loubert, he created the Domaine de Montaillant — named after its most important parcel — on the hill of Chasnay, in the IGP Côtes de la Charité. His own vines at last: three hectares of Chardonnay, three of Pinot Noir, on the argilo-calcaire of the Jurassic frontier.
The pairing of négoce and domaine is deliberate and unusual. The négoce wines — Grolleau, Menu Pineau, Sauvignon, Gamay, even Braucol — keep Alexis in dialogue with the Loire's diversity and its growers; the domaine wines anchor him in a single place, worked vine by vine. Conversion to organics was immediate in spirit and formal in 2024, when the estate was certified in Agriculture Biologique. In the vines: plant teas for treatments, pruning that respects the flow of sap. In the cellar: nothing added, wines clarified by successive rackings, no filtration, no fining, no rough handling of any kind. The range runs, in the estate's own words, "from primeur to long élevage" — and every bottle, whether négoce or domaine, is built on the same two commitments: simplicity and sincerity.
"In the cellar, Alexis allows no inputs — only a minimal dose of sulphur — and works according to the lunar calendar. From primeur to long-aged cuvées, each bottle expresses simplicity and sincerity."
— BIVB, on Domaine de Montaillant
The Côtes de la Charité, the Nièvre Faults & the Jurassic Hand
The Côtes de la Charité is one of France's best-kept viticultural secrets: an IGP created only in 2011, covering barely 65 hectares across six communes in the Nièvre, with just twelve producers — a vineyard at the gate of Burgundy, between Pouilly-sur-Loire and Nevers. Geography explains everything here. Great north-south faults and the long work of erosion have carved a relief of strong slopes and sustained altitudes; the Jurassic sedimentary subsoil is a layered alternation of limestone and marl that builds the classic argilo-calcaire soils. The grape varieties tell the same frontier story: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Burgundian side, Sauvignon, Pinot Gris and Gamay from the Loire. It is, in effect, a Côte d'Or geology at Loire latitudes — Kimmeridgian country, a stone's throw from the land of Pouilly-Fumé.
The domaine occupies the hill of Chasnay at the lieu-dit La Vernière — southwest-facing slopes climbing from 250 to 350 metres. The flagship parcel, which gave the estate its name, tops out at 350 metres on marly clay-limestone — the highest plot of the estate. The Chardonnay vines date from 1991, part of a stock of 30- to 40-year-old plantings across the six hectares; the Pinot Noir parcels, of similar age, include the 1.16-hectare Les Abeilles and the 1.34-hectare La Table. Every parcel faces southwest on the same Jurassic foundation — one hill, one exposition, one soil family, read parcel by parcel. Farming is organic (certified 2024) with tisanes of plants for treatments and pruning conducted in respect of the sap flow — gentle, vine-listening viticulture in the tradition Alexis absorbed at Vignes du Maynes.
What makes this place compelling is precisely its in-betweenness. Wines from Chasnay carry the structure and mineral frame of Burgundy's limestone — yet with the coolness, lift, and aromatic freedom of the Loire. The Chardonnays are saline and taut rather than opulent; the Pinots are perfumed and light-footed rather than extracted. And because the appellation is young and unburdened by hierarchy, there are no premiers crus to chase, no village ladder to climb — only the freedom to let Montaillant, Les Abeilles, and La Table establish their own reputations, bottle by bottle, in a 65-hectare appellation that is, quite literally, being defined by its dozen growers in real time.
Chasnay is a small village in the western Nièvre, in the orbit of La Charité-sur-Loire — the medieval priory town that gives the IGP its name — and within sight of the Loire's Sauvignon heartland. The domaine's farm at La Vernière crowns the village hill, its vines climbing southwest-facing slopes from 250 to 350 metres. It is a working farm rather than a showpiece: visits and tastings at the domaine, by reservation, Monday to Friday — a cellar door in the most literal sense, run by a vigneron who once stood on the other side of the counter as a sommelier.
The estate took its name from its most important parcel — and the Montaillant cuvée carries the hill's highest ground: 2.5 hectares of Chardonnay planted in 1991, rising to 350 metres on marly clay-limestone, southwest-facing. From this plot comes the domaine's defining white, aged in concrete and oak — with the highest portion seeing an extended two-year élevage split between 350-litre barrels and amphorae. When Alexis Hudon and Jérôme Loubert needed a name for their venture, they looked no further than the vineyard's best slope — terroir first, even in the christening.
IGP Côtes de la Charité covers roughly 65 hectares across six communes — among France's smallest recognised wine areas — worked by about twelve producers. There is no cru hierarchy, no established style, no market expectation: the appellation is a blank page on which its growers are writing in real time. For a domaine like Montaillant, that is liberation: the freedom to plant Pinot Noir and Chardonnay on Kimmeridgian-adjacent limestone, to vinify without inputs, and to let the wines themselves argue for what this frontier terroir can be — Burgundian in structure, Loire in spirit.
Since 2018, Alexis has run a négoce in parallel with the domaine, buying grapes — principally from the Loire — from vignerons who share his values, and vinifying them with exactly the same discipline as the estate wines: no inputs, minimal sulphur, lunar calendar. The range reads like a love letter to Loire diversity: Menu Pineau as pét-nat (La Charge), a Sauvignon–Menu Pineau–Chardonnay blend (Matousé), Grolleau gris (Le Groslot), and a red of Gamay, teinturier Gamay, Braucol, and Grolleau (Groseille). The négoce keeps one foot in Anjou and Touraine while the domaine plants the other firmly in the Nièvre.
Native Yeast, Successive Rackings & the Lunar Hand
The Montaillant cellar operates on a principle of radical restraint. Alexis's own summary is unambiguous: "We use sulphur in a small dose on the musts before fermentation, to start from healthy bases and avoid deviations at the start of fermentation. The wines are then clarified by successive rackings and undergo no filtration, no fining, or any other rough manipulation." That is the entire recipe: native yeasts, no inputs, no corrections — and a cellar schedule that follows the lunar calendar, from racking to bottling.
The vessels tell the same story of texture over make-up. The Montaillant Chardonnay is aged in concrete vats and oak barrels — concrete keeping the wine "fresh and slightly tropical," in one importer's note, far from the heavy vanilla cliché of the variety; the top parcel's wine sees an extended two-year élevage, 30% in 350-litre barrels and 10% in amphorae. The reds split their ageing between concrete and oak (La Table), fibre (Les Abeilles), and pure oak for the long-élevage Pinot. The sparkling La Démarrante is a Chardonnay pét-nat, twelve months on its lattes before disgorgement; the rosé "Ceci N'Est Pas Ce Que Vous Pensez" — Magritte given fizz — blends Pinot Noir and Chardonnay raised in inox and oak. Everything is bottled unfined and unfiltered.
What emerges is a range that critics and cavistes describe with one recurring phrase: where Burgundy meets the Loire. The Montaillant white has volume and richness "perfectly balanced by a mineral, saline finish" — unfiltered to keep the juice intact, "a real Swiss army knife" at the table. The Pinots are natural in register but clean in execution: strawberry, sour cherry, a fresh and lifted line. The négoce wines extend the same honesty to Grolleau and Menu Pineau — grapes most of the market has forgotten, treated here with premier cru seriousness. It is the sommelier's sensibility transposed to the cellar: balance, drinkability, and the quiet confidence to let the wine pour itself.
No Inputs, Lunar Time — The Hudon Method
The guiding principle of the Montaillant cellar is that a wine made from healthy, organic grapes needs almost nothing — and that "almost" should be administered at the very beginning, never the end. A minimal dose of sulphur on the musts to guarantee clean fermentations; native yeasts thereafter; texture built by time and lees rather than wood and additives; clarification by patient racking, never by filtration or fining; and the whole rhythm of the cellar — racking, élevage, bottling — set by the lunar calendar. Concrete for freshness, 350-litre barrels and amphorae for the long élevages, fibre for the young reds, twelve months on lattes for the pét-nat. The method is the message of the whole project: a sommelier who spent years pouring other people's wines decided exactly how he wanted his own to taste — simply, sincerely, and with nothing to hide.
Montaillant, La Table, La Démarrante & the Frontier Hand
The Montaillant portfolio is one hill read two ways — the domaine range, from the estate's own six hectares of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and the négoce range, from organic Loire grapes vinified with the same no-input discipline. Domaine or négoce, the rule is identical: native fermentations, minimal sulphur, lunar timing, no fining, no filtration. Quantities are small, some cuvées exist only on allocation, and the estate encourages reserving a year ahead — with 5% off for those who commit early.
The Atlantic Crossing, the 65 Hectares & the Sincerity Hand
Domaine de Montaillant is proof that French wine's future is being written by people France didn't grow. A Québécois sommelier with no vines to inherit, no family château, no appellation famous enough to trade on — who instead assembled a career the way he now assembles a blend: Burgundy harvests and Mâconnais biodynamics, Anjou naturalism and Parisian service, Jousset rigor and Loire curiosity. What he built at Chasnay is a template for the next generation: find the overlooked appellation, farm it organically, make the wine with nothing, and let sincerity do the marketing.
The legacy he is writing is also a legacy for a place. The Côtes de la Charité — 65 hectares, twelve producers, an IGP barely a decade old — is an appellation without a fixed identity, and every serious grower who settles there helps decide what it will become. Montaillant's bet is clear: that this Jurassic frontier deserves to be known for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir of Burgundian structure and Loire freshness, made without inputs and sold without pretension. When the appellation's history is written, the hill of Chasnay and the Québécois who named his domaine after its best parcel will be in the first chapter.
The future of the project is deliberately artisanal: six hectares, two grapes, one hill — with the négoce as the laboratory where forgotten varieties (Menu Pineau, Grolleau Gris, Braucol) get their second life. As the 2024 organic certification beds in, as Les Abeilles joins the range, and as more of the wine world discovers the Nièvre's limestone frontier, Alexis Hudon and Jérôme Loubert remain what they set out to be: a sommelier and his partner on a hill between two regions, making wines of simplicity and sincerity — and proving that the most interesting address in French wine can be one nobody had heard of five years ago.
"When Burgundy meets the Loire — volume and richness, perfectly balanced by a mineral, saline finish."
— Épi-Curieux, on the Montaillant Chardonnay