Domaine du Closel: A Family's Fight to Save Savennières' Crown Jewel

After two centuries of family stewardship, three brothers battle investors for control of one of the Loire's most storied chenin blanc estates.

Few appellations in France carry the quiet, unshakeable authority of Savennières. Tucked along the right bank of the Loire in Anjou, its steep schist slopes produce chenin blancs of rare mineral tension — wines that demand patience and repay it with decades of complexity. And few domaines have been as synonymous with the identity of Savennières as Domaine du Closel, a property whose history is so deeply woven into the appellation that, for much of the twentieth century, it simply went by another name: Château de Savennières.

That name alone tells you what is at stake.

The domaine now finds itself at the centre of a succession drama that reads like a parable of French wine heritage in the modern age. On one side, three brothers with deep familial roots in the estate and a structured financial plan. On the other, unnamed but reportedly substantial French and international investors with established distribution networks and deep pockets. The arbiter is not terroir, nor tradition, nor even the market. It is the judicial court of Angers.

A Legacy Stretching Back to the Revolution

The Closel story begins in 1794, when the property entered the hands of a single family. It has remained there since — split, as these things often are in France, between two branches holding near-equal shares. The operative word is “near.” In a structure where decision-making power hinges on fractional differences in ownership, that sliver of imbalance has shaped the domaine’s trajectory for generations.

For much of the estate’s recent history, the driving force was Évelyne de Pontbriand. Taking the reins in 2001, she became one of the most visible ambassadors for Savennières and for chenin blanc more broadly. She founded the Paulée d’Anjou, a celebratory gathering modelled on Burgundy’s famous post-harvest tradition, and established the Académie du Chenin, an institution dedicated to the study and promotion of the grape variety that defines the Loire’s greatest dry whites. She served as president, then co-president, of the Savennières appellation itself.

Her death, sudden and unexpected, in the early hours of 5 November 2024, set in motion the chain of events now approaching their conclusion.

The Three Brothers

On the other branch of the family tree sit Amaury, Mayeul, and Aloïs Bazin de Jessey — nephews of de Pontbriand and minority shareholders in the domaine. Their attachment to the property is not financial speculation; it is biographical. Their grandmother, Michèle de Jessey, was the first woman ever to lead a French appellation. Their great-uncle, Bernard Barbat du Closel, was instrumental in the creation of the Savennières appellation in 1952 and served as mayor of the commune. The estate, in their telling, is not merely an asset. It is an inheritance in the fullest sense of the word.

Their mother, Isabelle, had long resisted approaches from potential buyers — and there had been many over the years. Some prospective acquirers were even received at the property by de Pontbriand herself. But the minority branch held firm. When de Pontbriand died, the brothers resolved to continue that stance, this time by taking the offensive.

From Cessation of Payments to a Bid for Survival

The timeline since November 2024 has moved with the grim efficiency of French commercial law. A declaration of cessation of payments was filed. By the summer of 2025, the domaine was placed under judicial receivership. The court-appointed administrator then called for a formal cession plan, effectively putting the estate on the block.

On 2 February 2026, the three brothers submitted their takeover bid to the judicial court of Angers.

The dossier, according to Aloïs — whose professional life as head of business and mergers and acquisitions at the Prisma Media group has given him fluency in precisely this kind of structured transaction — is thorough and professionally assembled. The brothers have drawn on their respective areas of expertise and engaged external specialists to build a plan they describe as fully financed and secured.

They have also launched a novel parallel strategy: a pre-sale campaign on the French crowdfunding platform Ulule, offering packages ranging from twenty-five to five thousand euros. The offerings include bottles from the domaine’s existing stocks, wine-tourism experiences, and the chance to create a bespoke cuvée as a tribute to their grandmother Michèle. The campaign had already raised a hundred and fifty thousand euros at the time of writing.

The purpose of this initiative, the brothers say, is less about the capital itself than about demonstrating public support and broad-based momentum behind a family-led takeover — a counterweight, in effect, to the institutional heft of rival bids from major players with integrated distribution capabilities.

The Scale of the Challenge

Those close to the dossier acknowledge that the path ahead is steep. The domaine’s cellars are aging and in need of significant investment. More strikingly, a lack of resources in recent years has allowed several hectares to fall into disuse, reverting to fallow land — a painful sight on an estate whose terroir is among the most prized in the Loire.

Restoring the property to its former standing will require several million euros, according to informed estimates. The brothers are undaunted, at least publicly. Their business plan includes the replanting of between half a hectare and a full hectare per year, with a particular focus on the domaine’s historic hillside parcels. These south-west-facing slopes, visible from the village of Savennières itself, were among the most celebrated sites on the estate but were eventually abandoned because their gradient made them impossible to work with conventional tractors.

Reclaiming those coteaux would be a statement of intent — a commitment not merely to maintaining the domaine but to restoring it to a level of ambition commensurate with its history.

Waiting for the Verdict

The court’s decision is expected within weeks. In the meantime, five employees continue to keep the domaine operational — a skeleton crew tending to a property that once stood as the reference point for an entire appellation.

The outcome will send a signal far beyond Savennières. Across France, historic family domaines face mounting pressure from investors, corporate groups, and international buyers drawn by the enduring prestige of French terroir. The question of whether legacy, local knowledge, and emotional commitment can compete with institutional capital and logistical scale is not unique to the Loire, but it is rarely posed in such stark terms.

For Savennières, the stakes are existential. If the Bazin de Jessey brothers succeed, Domaine du Closel will enter a new chapter under the stewardship of the same bloodline that has held it since the eighteenth century — a continuity almost without parallel in French viticulture. If they do not, one of the appellation’s founding estates will pass to new hands, and with it, perhaps, something harder to quantify than hectares or hectolitres.

The dice, as they say, have been cast. Now the court must decide where they land.