Domaine Lachat - Anne Lekkerkerker

Domaine Lachat is a 3-hectare farm, situated in the village of Régnié, a cru of Beaujolais.

The domaine is operated by myself, Anne, with the support of my husband, Thijs. In 2018, we relocated from Amsterdam to the Beaujolais in pursuit of our dream to live and raise our children in the French countryside. My roots in the hospitality industry propelled me into restoring part of our property and creating a vacation rental. This is where we welcome guests from around the world and share our view of Beaujolais farm life. We had the unique opportunity to acquire the vineyards situated around our home, so in 2020 I took up the challenge and used my passion for both wine and cultivation to try my hand in winemaking. 

Farming

We now cultivate our three hectares of vines organically, according to regenerative agricultural principles. Each year we improve upon our farming practices in order to impact our environment in positive ways. We do this to restore the balance of our granite soils. Some techniques used to implement this are; sowing permanent cover crop and allowing our sheep and chickens to graze and fertilize the land. Agroforestry has played a role in the vitality of our land as we have planted many different types of fruit trees around the property to encourage biodiversity. 

Our vineyard parcels fall within the Beaujolais Cru, Régnié, 350-400 meters above sea level. The old vines, granite soils and biodiversity express themselves within our wines. 

Vinification

We strive to create wines that show both the character of the terroir as well as reflect the vintage in which they were produced. After the grapes are handpicked, semi-carbonic maceration is applied. Spontaneous fermentation is done with indigenous yeast. We use different durations of maceration for our different cuvées. During the fermentation process we apply minimum interventions. A minimum amount of sulphur is used before bottling.