La Revue du Vin de France : The Briands' passion for excellence wines

"Bénédicte and Luc Briand grow 25 hectares of Chenin and red grape varieties in the heart of Anjou Noir. Their credo is to extract the best from the dark rocks of the Armorican massif to produce exceptional wines. So much so that many professionals in the trade, as well as the most discerning oenophiles, compare their whites to those of a certain Richard Leroy, who is also a good friend of this passionate couple. Bénédicte, a graduate of the ESCP business school and founder and owner of the Vins et Indépendance winery north of Nantes from 2002 to 2014, joined her future husband Luc Briand in 2015 - an Angevin and the son of winegrowers (domaine Julien Briand) - at the PlusValue consultancy in Nantes, where he is the managing director, having previously spent 15 years helping farmers make the transition to organic farming.

Precision work

Three years later, the lovebirds headed north to change their lives, to give new meaning to their lives as close to the land as possible, and took over the reins of the Richou estate: a vineyard flirting with 30 hectares of vines, quite a chunk of land for a first experience as owners, which would become Terra Vita Vinum. Thanks to their remarkable interpersonal skills and spontaneity, they quickly forged strong links with local winegrowers, notably Richard Leroy, canvassed their winegrower friends - Mathieu and Emmanuelle Milan, Julien Guillot, Philippe Gilbert, Olivier Humbrecht, Jean-François Ganevat, the Biodyvin network... - And they are working with Fabrice Redois, a geologist and professor at Angers University, to understand the essence of their soils, made up of schist, gneiss, rhyolite and granite, the ability of their terroirs to restore minerality and to plant the right grape varieties in the right places - in short, to ‘put the church back in the middle of the village’, to quote Luc."

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