Anne Lekkerkerker makes organic Gamay and Chardonnay at Domaine Lachat, a 3-hectare farm in Régnié, Beaujolais. We sent her our Meet the Winemaker questions. Everything below in "I" and "we" is her own answer, in her words, with only the typos fixed.
"Some things just appear on your path"
I arrived in Beaujolais in 2018 to achieve my dream of owning and operating a bed & breakfast. The property that we found just happened to be an old wine farm. To keep our family and future guests pesticide-free and protect our view, we decided to also purchase the surrounding vineyards.
After some encouragement from other (natural & organic) winemakers, we decided to cultivate the parcels ourselves. It never even crossed my mind before to make wine myself, but some things just appear on your path.
Our first harvest was in 2020, after completion of my wine education and different experiences with other winemakers.
6am at harvest
I do love the early morning during harvest. The air is still fresh and the sun is just starting to shine some light on the vines. Birds are starting to wake up and, if we are harvesting next to the domaine, our chickens, sheep & pigs will be awake too and hoping for an early breakfast.
What you never see
That most consumers won't realize how much work, energy & love is behind every bottle.
2024 was the most difficult year, with a lot of rain, spring frost, diseases & hail. The harvest was about 25% of the year before.
In the end I really love the quality of the wine from this vintage. Pouring it reminds me of the hard work we did and, although it was a tiny volume, I will never forget the year and the challenges we faced.
A moon landscape, then life
Everything! The first parcel that we started farming was farmed with pesticides before, and the soil was pretty much a moon landscape. Now it's alive with plants, insects and other animals. The beauty is that even after one year of leaving the pesticides behind, life is coming back. Vines are really strong and resilient plants.
The choice that costs her yield
In principle, I want to use permanent cover crop and not turn over the soil. That reduces our yields because there is more competition for the vines. But in the end I believe it will help create a healthier environment.
Her first orange wine
This year I'm making my first 'orange wine'. Whole cluster Chardonnay grapes macerated for 9 days in a clay amphora. So far I'm excited about the result but very curious how it will turn out after another 7 months of ageing.
Fun wines you keep drinking
When I'm no longer making wine, I'd like people to say that I always tried new things and made fun wines that you want to keep drinking!
I joined Vivan because it's very personal & small-scale, just like us.
And to whoever opens one of our boxes: enjoy a glass of wine while celebrating life with your favourite people!
The wines: organic Gamay and Chardonnay from granite soils
From the Vivan team. Domaine Lachat farms three hectares of Gamay and Chardonnay in Régnié, a Beaujolais cru, on granite soils at 350 to 400 metres. The grapes are organic (certified AB), picked by hand and fermented spontaneously with indigenous yeasts after semi-carbonic maceration. Anne uses different maceration times for different cuvées and adds a minimum of sulphur before bottling. Our product pages list 14 to 23mg of sulphites per bottle, so these are low-sulphite wines, not no-added-sulphite wines.
The range runs from bright to serious. Beaujolais-Villages Blanc 2024 is a Chardonnay, half stainless steel and half clay amphora. Pourquoi-Pas 2025 is a blouge: Gamay and Chardonnay macerated together for six days. Rookie No2 2022 is a nine-day Gamay made for the apéro. Les trois copains 2023 blends her three Régnié vineyards after 14 days of maceration. Cuvée Lachat 2023 comes from old vines, some up to 90 years old, and is aged eight months in fibre tanks. The orange Chardonnay Anne describes above is not on sale yet. See the full Domaine Lachat collection or the 6-bottle case.
Every Domaine Lachat bottle on Vivan is packed by Anne and shipped direct from Beaujolais. Meet Domaine Lachat and their wines.
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