A transmission story

The recent history of Vignobles Invindia was shaped by fortunate encounters.

From Jean-Claude to Jean-Pierre

First, the one who, in 1987, forged what our first vineyards were: Jean-Claude Bernard, Château Haut-Meyreau‘s owner and winemaker and Jean-Pierre Derouet, then a young man in search of his life’s mission and solely driven by passion and ambition. At the estate, the production was then mainly sold in bulk. The idea of ​​developing sales by the bottle and then via home sales germinated and was met with real success. In parallel with door-to-door sales, Jean-Pierre opened his first wine shop, back home in Mayenne. Met with success, the number of salespeople started to rapidly increase. Jean-Pierre soon opened two, then three new wine shops. At the same time, the surface area of ​​Château Haut-Meyreau continued to grow to allow this evolution to grow and fructify.

This direct relationship between sales and production as well as the connection between the two men allowed the estates to quickly adapt to customer expectations and make a name for themselves among their neighbors. This beautiful story continued to be written for around twenty years, during which Jean-Pierre and his partner, Emmanuel Bouvet, expanded their network of wine shops across France.

From the beginning of the 2000s, the Bordeaux vineyards – not including the prestigious appellations-, saw the beginnings of a decline in the consumption of their wines. It is in this challenging context that Jean-Pierre took over from Mr. Bernard, who entrusted him with the future of the estate upon his retirement in 2010. He continued the expansion of the Château and purchased other estates which would be brought together under a common identity much later as “Vignobles Invindia”.

From Jean-Pierre to Hugues

In 2017, when Patrick Clarens, who had been estate manager for 20 years, was approaching retirement, Jean-Pierre began looking for a person that would embody both a savvy manager and true winemaker. Here again, it is a lucky encounter  which is at the origin of the sequel, the meeting between Jean-Pierre and Hugues Laborde.

The young Gers native, recently graduated as an agronomist, before being employed at Château Lassègue in Saint-Emilion, a stone’s throw from Château Le Conte,  which had just been bought by Jean-Pierre and Emmanuel. They were immediately seduced by the personality, talent and ambition of the young man and entrusted him with the keys to Vignobles Invindia. He became the 3rd generation to embody the vineyards’ history, after Jean-Claude and Jean-Pierre. As soon as he arrived, he brought his vision and his desire and began significant, but necessary, changes to the different areas. Those changes embodied  the viticultural renewal which was desired by Hugues.

Since 2020, another technical turn has been taken by Hugues who enlists the advice of the oenologist Thomas Duclos for all of the estates. With his vision of wine which perfectly matches Hugues’ philosophy, the two men continue to perfect the work that was initiated by their peers years before.