This text is part of the special book Plaisirs
Gaétan Demers dreamed of returning to the land. A little more than 10 years ago, he concretized a long-considered retirement project by buying, with his wife and their two children, a 65-hectare estate on Île d’Orléans where he began to cultivate vines. The Seigniory of Liret — the name of this piece of land dates back to the time of New France — has since regained its letters of nobility. Today, their bubbles and their wines are prized by restaurateurs.
Located in the municipality of Sainte-Famille, on the northern slope of Île d’Orléans, the organic vineyard of Louise Bédard and Gaétan Demers faces the river, offering a splendid view of Mont Sainte-Anne. It is in this “idyllic” setting, describes their son Sébastien, that the family has set itself the goal of producing wines that have nothing to envy to the great European wines.
“We started from nothing,” says Sébastien Demers, who takes care of the administration with his sister, while his mother is in the field and his father in the cellar. In 2011, the Demers family, surrounded by experts in agronomy and oenology, planted 10,000 vines where there was a field of asparagus. And they don’t just choose just any grape varieties: hybrids, such as Frontenac Blanc, Vidal or Marquette, reputed to be more resistant to Quebec winters, but also Vitis Vinifera such as we find in Europe, more delicate, such as Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
A favorite with restaurants
If the first harvest took place in 2014, they waited four more years before marketing their wines: a red, a white and two sparkling, all certified organic by Ecocert, like their grapes elsewhere.
“We weren’t in a hurry to market it,” continues Sébastien Demers. We told ourselves that as long as we didn’t like the wines, we wouldn’t release them. We were lucky to be able to be patient and that was a good thing because to make a sparkling wine using the traditional method, the wine must be aged on laths for three or four years. »
The results exceeded their expectations and, quickly, bottles of La Seigneurie de Liret became a popular commodity for restaurateurs, in particular Nuage effervescent, which was served during the G7 summit in La Malbaie in 2018, he reveals. proudly. “It’s really like a champagne, even if you can’t use this appellation”, he specifies, since it is reserved for French sparkling wines produced in Champagne. In fact, this sparkling white made from the same grape varieties that shine in the great Champagne houses – chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier – even managed to fool sommeliers in the context of a blind tasting.
European grape varieties on Île d’Orléans?
Unsurprisingly, they are regularly asked how they manage to cultivate, in the Quebec region moreover, grape varieties as fragile as pinot meunier, which few Quebec winegrowers have taken the risk of planting, even in the hottest points of the region. province.
In addition to the microclimate which favors the cultivation of berries and vines in this part of Île d’Orléans, underlines Sébastien Demers, his family does not use traditional geotextiles, but rather insulating blankets which have the advantage of keeping the vines at a constant temperature — a few degrees below freezing point — during the winter. A first in Quebec. “As my father was mainly interested in vinifera and we were in the field of industrial insulation, we thought we would try to protect our vines with our insulating covers, which are normally used in industry. oil or mining, and it worked. The proof: since 2011, the Demers have not lost a single plant to frost, without even using a glycol heating system.
And this is how Gaétan Demers’ “small” retirement project continues to grow: to the initial 10,000 vines, the family recently added 1,500 Riesling plants and plans to plant more hybrids for production. of Mousse des vents, its sparkling rosé.
Undoubtedly, the Île d’Orléans bears the nickname “Bacchus Island” better than ever, once given to it by Jacques Cartier, in honor of the god of wine!
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Homework, relating to marketing. The drafting of Homework did not take part.