Domaine de l'Écu: A Monk and a Curvy Woman

Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the biodynamic pioneer and founder of Domaine de l'Écu Guy Bossard, Fred's estate in Le Landreau, in the heart of Muscadet, represents one of the most quietly radical addresses in the Loire Valley, dedicated to phytotherapy and amphorae, guided by cosmoculture.

Fred and I are no strangers from the wine circuit, and I’ve had the pleasure to drink many of his bottles, vibrant as the colours on their mosaic-window labels, over the years. (Fun fact: some of these are from the Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague – a Czech connection!) Alas, given Écu's popularity and the many things that keep us both busy, we never really got to exchange as much as I'd have liked.

So when I received an invitation to pour at this edition of Le Temps des Copains, the coveted wine fair happening at Fred's domaine at the end of June, (check Ecu’s website for dates and tickets) it felt like the right moment to finally break some bread. What followed was one of the more wide-ranging conversations I've had in a while: sacred geometry, Philippe Viret, Stonehenge, healing, and the reason Muscadet deserves to be taken as seriously as any great white wine region in France.

Words by Milan Nestarec and Lucie Kohoutová / Photos courtesy of Domaine de l'Ecu

Let’s take a step back first – Guy Bossard built Domaine de l'Écu into one of the most important reference points for biodynamic winemaking in the Loire. What does that legacy mean to you, and what did you inherit beyond the vines?

Guy was said to be the Pope of Muscadet… He passed away a few years ago but is still in everyone’s memory. He was a great winemaker, a pioneer; at a time when all the winemakers of the 1960s and ‘70s turned to industrial, standardized viticulture, heavily reliant on harvesting machines, herbicides and other pesticides, he stood firm, like the last of the Mohicans, as we say, "on his horse's back."

He was mocked, but that's the common lot of those who are ahead of their time. The estate has never been sprayed with chemicals, and that will never change; it's a legacy that must be preserved at all costs. My name is Fred, not Guy, so I naturally bring something different to my approach and my vision of wine, specifically with the establishment of cosmoculture. But I always respect what Guy taught me: Respect for life and the terroir!

How and when did you come to Domaine de l'Écu? Your path here isn't exactly the conventional winemaking story – you're originally from the city of Nantes, with a background in IT. What brought you to the Muscadet and to becoming Fred Niger the vigneron?

Before working in IT, I also spent six years at law school. When I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer, and now I make wine, a strange life path indeed… Muscadet was, in fact, the wine region closest to where I grew up. In the early 2000s, there were very few certified biodynamic winemakers in France and especially in my region, just two at the time.

Guy Bossard was looking for someone to take over his estate, I was looking to take one over, and we came to an agreement. I arrived during the 2009 harvest, followed by long internships with Guy before taking over the management of the estate at the beginning of 2011.

Becoming the winemaker of a non-organic estate was out of the question for me. I was passionate about organic and natural wines, visiting lots of wineries and going to wine fairs all over Europe, whenever I had free time, and had a cellar with over 4,000 bottles at the time… I am convinced that to make wine, you must first taste, taste, and taste again, wines from other places.

To understand, you have to taste.

To progress, you have to taste...

The truth isn't found in an oenology book, but in a certain sensitivity, an intuition and a deep conviction that result in vibrant wines... right?

If wine were merely the result of following a recipe, of cultivation and vinification methods followed to the letter, even by the “village idiot”, there would only be vibrant wines on the market, and that's not the case...

Domaine de l’Écu is certified organic and biodynamic. There are also plenty of wine growers that work by the same principles without ever getting certified. Why does it matter to you to carry the official stamp? I ask because it's been a journey for me too, before getting the organic certification for all our vineyards and wines, and I'm curious how you land on it. What does certification actually mean in practice, versus what it signals to the outside world?

The estate has always been certified organic and then Demeter at the start of the 1990s. I added Biodyvin certification in 2014 because I love being audited [laughs].

Being certified doesn't mean the wines are good or not: it's simply clear proof that the work has been done by the rules, leaving no room for doubt.

Even Domaine de la Romanée-Conti got Biodyvin certification, do they need it ? Certainly not, but it was their choice. Mind you, I'm not saying that all non-certified winemakers are fake or dishonest; it's just a choice. But for some, it might be an easy way to benefit from greenwashing at no cost; when you scratch the surface, you sometimes realize that we're told some nice-sounding stories... Not everyone is a Jedi, some belong to the dark side [laughs].

MY choice is to be certified and to carry the official stamps.

When Guy Bossard handed you the domaine, the extended lees contact was already part of the philosophy. Have you pushed it further, changed the approach, or essentially kept faith with what was already working? And what does elevage sur lie actually do for these wines that couldn't be achieved another way?

Aging wines on lees is a very traditional practice in our region. Quite simply, the wines are aged on fine lees for between 6 months and 2 years. The big difference at Ecu is that I don’t rack the wines after a fast pressing. All the wines are aged on the full sediment and, take my word for it, this amounts to a significant volume compared to fine lees.

It’s not very conventional, but that’s what Guy taught me, and it works very well. It enriches the wines and adds a bit of tannic structure; on the other hand, you have to forget about stirring the lees, otherwise you’ll end up with London fog for two years.

You work across geologically distinct terroirs: granite, gneiss, and orthogneiss. How differently do you actually have to work each of those three terroirs, both in the vineyard and in the cellar, to let the geology speak clearly? And is there a soil type that consistently surprises you, or one that still gives you trouble?

To put it simply, the winery is situated on a large rise with a subsoil of orthogneiss, and some gneiss at the top, totaling 24 hectares. I also have 4 hectares on another slope with a granite subsoil. The soils are shallow, light and high in silica, requiring the same work in the vineyard: plowing is mandatory and no cover crops are possible because the vines are planted directly on the rock… the competition would be too great. It's not a choice, then, but a necessity dictated by the terroir.

To let the terroir express itself, I fight against modern winemaking practices. I'm very hands-off in the cellar: gravity, no pumps, no temperature control during fermentation, no enzymes, no oenological yeasts, etc.

What's astonishing is that when you taste, for example, two Melon de Bourgogne wines from the same vintage, vinified in the same containers and bottled at the same time, but from two different terroirs, you always get two different wines; the granite is always very taut and linear, and the orthogneiss always produces more powerful, rounder wines… you get a monk and a curvy woman [laughs].

It's the same story year after year, and for me, a good proof of what the word "terroir" means when you don't try to disguise the wines in the cellar.

Muscadet has always had its loyal following, but for a long time, it sat in a strange middle ground: respected in the region, underestimated everywhere else, rarely the wine people reached for when they wanted to make a point. That's been shifting. More and more serious producers, sommeliers, and drinkers are paying attention to what's happening in Sèvre-et-Maine. How much of that renewed interest comes down to what's changed in the cellar, and how much to the vineyard? Or is this shift a result of some external forces, too? What role do you think Domaine de l'Écu specifically played in the reframing?

For a long time, the region around Nantes was part of the Duchy of Brittany, which was annexed by France in 1532. Nevertheless, internal borders remained in place, along with customs duties on all goods entering and leaving Brittany. Consequently, a self-sufficient wine-growing region developed, based on the Melon de Bourgogne and Folle Blanche grape varieties, producing light, fresh wines for local consumption and spirits destined for Northern Europe. This situation persisted for a long time, and after World War I, the wine industry shifted toward mass production, culminating in the establishment of the AOC system in 1936 and the Muscadet appellation in 1937.

An inexpensive white wine to enjoy with a basket of oysters... that was the appellation’s motto until the early 1980s. Guy Bossard and Jo Landron were the first to promote organic and biodynamic farming and terroir-driven wines. They were the locomotives, and now many carriages have been attached to the train. It took another 30 years for the renaissance of Nantes wines to take hold. While mass-produced wines are still made today – as is the case in all regions – many producers are now championing the values of commitment and quality in their wines, and I hope that Domaine de l’Ecu is among them.

Why shouldn’t Muscadet be capable of producing great wines like those made in Burgundy, Bordeaux, or the Jura? The proof is in the glass: Ecu exports to 50 countries and is served at the finest gourmet restaurants.... It took time to achieve this growing recognition, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

In a region that has long been in decline, the proof of its revival lies in the new generation of winemakers who have arrived over the past ten years, all organic and striving for excellence.

Claire, your partner, is very much a presence at the domaine — how does your collaboration shape what ends up in the bottle?

Claire is my other half, shares my life, and inevitably influences some of my choices… that’s just how it is. What you’ll taste in your glass is by no means MY wine, but OUR wines, and in “OUR,” I obviously also include the entire team at the estate, without whom I couldn’t do much.

Claire also independently produces two skin contact cuvees in amphora: Celeste and Vitae... and in this case, it might be me who influenced her.

I thought I was the one who held the record for the most cuvées, but your list is pretty impressive too [laughs]. Can you walk us through how your portfolio is structured and why? Is the number a result of intention, or did it grow organically from the terroir logic?

Life is too short to be boring [laughs]. The first part of the wine range is produced exclusively from grapes grown on the estate. The lineup includes about twenty wines made from Pinot Noir, Melon de Bourgogne, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, and Folle Blanche.

Basically, each grape variety is vinified using three methods depending on the terroir and the age of the vines: élevage in concrete tanks, élevage in amphorae, and élevage with extended skin contact. Unfortunately, not all of the cuvées are produced every year, as the weather in recent years has been nothing short of capricious.

The second part are wines from grapes I purchase from friends who practice organic and/or biodynamic farming: Theo Milan, Josmeyer, David Reynaud, etc.

Knowing you, I reckon this idea goes beyond simple négoce.

The story began in 2014 during a conversation with my friend Philippe Viret. We thought: we use the same winemaking practices and age our wines in amphorae, but what about the terroir? Can the terroir influence the same fermenting juice when it’s in two different places? Can a winemaker’s energy affect the juice?

The answer is, of course, crystal clear and enlightening, given that the Syrah aged at my place is completely different from the one aged by Philippe in his cellar. From this observation came the idea of vinifying juices from friends across Europe. An experiment with what seemed to us to be the very essence of Cosmoculture: currents and ley lines, standing stones, music, magnetism, sacred geometry… What about their influence on juice?

The result is a range of wines that we make with friends, when time allows — not every year, and always on a small scale. We call it “Le Temps des Copains.” [Friends' time in French, editor's note.] This is also how the eponymous wine festival, happening at our domaine at the end of June, was born.

You have around 100 amphorae, if my research is right. For many winemakers, it was a fashionable moment; they tried it, moved on. But not you, you still use them as your main ageing vessel. After all these years, can you give us a real reckoning? What genuinely works and what doesn't? I’m very curious about both the happy discoveries and the fuckups along the way.

When I started making wine in amphorae in 2010, some people called me a “crazy guy who made wine in clay pots”. Viret, Vodopivec, and Gravner weren’t yet in vogue. For me, winemaking in amphorae is simply the culmination of my approach to cosmoculture.

Most of my amphorae are crafted based on the golden ratio, which makes sense to me. I must also admit I’m not a big fan of overly oaked wines. I don’t understand the concept of masking wines with new oak after having worked so hard in the vineyard and the cellar...

Today, more than three-quarters of our wines are fermented, aged, or macerated on the skins in amphorae. Amphorae are very “capricious” vessels and problems can be numerous, the most common being bacterial contamination and volatile acidity, which can develop within a week. There’s no book to teach you how to make wine in amphorae: you have to try, make mistakes, throw it out, start over, and learn... I don’t have a magic potion, and I’ve sent wine to the distillery many times over the years—that’s life! When you work without a belt or suspenders, you have to accept that your pants can fall down to your knees.

To use another analogy, I’d say that if a winemaker wants to make wine in amphorae, he or she shouldn’t forget that when you put a pot of milk on the stove to heat up, it’s strongly advised not to leave the house… if you know what I mean.

Over the years, I've experimented with different aging times, and basically, the wine develops best around two years of aging (in my cellar), and one year for all wines with skin contact maceration, though that's not a rule, it's just my observation. After two years of aging, the wine doesn't change any further—it doesn't get any better, but it doesn't get any worse either.

When people talk about amphora pioneers, the names that usually come up are Gravner, Vodopivec, Foradori. But, as you mention yourself, you were also deeply influenced by the late Philippe Viret, the legendary Rhone-Valley winemaker and your close friend, who was experimenting with aging wine in terracotta well ahead of the recent wave. If you don’t mind, I’d love to hear more about him and your relationship. What did he teach you, what do you think people should know about him?

Philippe was my closest friend; he passed away in early 2025. I'll try to summarize what I learned from him and his father: cosmoculture farming.

The biodynamic philosophy is widely known in our part of the wine scene. What is rather different and really specific here at Écu is that I focus the work not only on biodynamic practices but also — or I should say mainly — on cosmoculture practices.

Cosmoculture draws on ancestral knowledge rooted in ancient Mayan and Incan civilizations. More than a cultivation method, it is a philosophy in its own right, based on knowledge of energetic principles. Cosmoculture encourages winemakers to establish exchanges between cosmic energies and terrestrial elements.

The objective is to preserve living beings and rebalance ecosystems. It is a natural farming method that, in addition to biological and biodynamic principles, relies on the exchange of cosmic energy and telluric energy from the earth.

We have to re-discover the energetic balance of the soils. Perceived as a form of terrestrial acupuncture, interventions on specific active points, using quartz crystals and stones, can bring energy to the soil and the wine cellar. The earth is not inert; all living elements are influenced by vibrations and radiation and evolve, according to cosmoculture, between two fundamental forces: the Cosmos and the Earth.

Does that mean the lunar calendar, the position of the stars etc. genuinely change how you work day to day?

Does a full moon affect the vines, a wine bottling, the sea, the way you behave? Of course it does!

How could this not impact the vine which takes its roots in the earth, or the place where the wine is vinified and aged? We are constantly receiving electromagnetic forces: all living matter emits waves, whether minerals, plants, animals or humans. Invisible forces therefore influence the vines, the fermenting juice, the wine, and the way you and your team behave.

Do you really think Stonehenge is just a pile of stones in the middle of England? [laughs]

So how does this translate concretely into what you do in the vineyard and the cellar?

If you combine organic farming and biodynamics, working with quartz stones, working with telluric lines and the use of sacred geometry, even for the placement of the amphorae, you get a place and wines that are necessarily different.

The practice of biodynamics is not the highest step in the agricultural world… for me, it's just the basics, the minimum necessary to evolve towards something more "vibratory."

I am not a mage, I am not a druid, I am not a wizard… And this is not the truth… it is my truth [smiles].

I tried to be as clear and straightforward as possible, but still a long explanation, right [laugh]. The best thing is to come and feel the vibratory flows in the cellar… it is far more revealing than any speech.

You've built a new winery recently. What drove the decision, and what did you want to get right that couldn't be done in the old space?

The old winery was far too small. There was little space for storing equipment, little space for winemaking, and definitely not enough available space to store over a hundred amphorae… The cellar was like all old cellars, full of nooks and crannies, without air conditioning, and forced us to store the bottles in another location two kilometers from the estate… not very efficient.

Today, the new winery has been designed to be ultra-efficient: everything is in one place, streamlined workflow, and optimized processes, from bottling to storage and shipping. And then, I was also able to create something that truly reflects my vision, including a reception area with a professional kitchen so I can host chefs, organize dinners at the estate and handle all the logistics of the Temps des Copains wine festival.

Now that you've had a few years in the new winery, any regrets? Anything you'd have done differently if you were building it today?

The construction of the winery was obviously based on the golden ratio, on sacred geometry, like the Egyptian pyramids, all the Mayan temples, synagogues, monasteries, abbeys... The length, width, and height of the building were calculated using the divine proportion: 1.168… This seems perfect to me.

No regrets except that even nearly 3,000 square meters are not big enough [laughs].

We’re only a few months away from Le Temps des Copains, a wine festival that you organise at the domaine as one of your key events each year. What's the idea behind it?

The aim of this wine fair, since its first edition, has been to invite winemakers who share our work ethic, but above all, to bring together winemakers who will promote our way of working to visitors from western France, even though many visitors come from all over France and beyond… including Italy, Spain, Germany, Ireland and overseas, like the States or Taiwan.

So, simply being a well-known winemaker isn't enough to receive an invitation; what matters is kindness, good humor and willingness to share. Like a bunch of friends… After all, it’s called Temps des copains – Friends’ Time! Incidentally, these are all winemakers I know and appreciate for their work, their commitment, and the authenticity of their wines… and that's perhaps what makes the event so successful.

I’m very pleased to be considered part of the bunch, thank you [laughs]. This year is a premiere for me, but the fair has been going for 6 editions already – what has changed during the years, and what remains the same?

The biggest difference since the first edition is undoubtedly the lineup – we started with 25 winemakers and now have over 75. Also the turnout is significantly bigger, it attracts many more visitors, both professionals and wine lovers. Temps des Copains has clearly become the largest fair dedicated to organic and biodynamic wines in my area.

We receive many applications from growers throughout the year but we accept very few. So, I try to rotate the winemakers every year to welcome all our friends, but it's not easy… we can't exactly expand the winery to accommodate more winemakers! What’s firmly on the agenda each year is joie de vivre, a giant barbecue, festive evenings, music… and short nights [laughs].

The wine world is definitely not un long fleuve tranquille right now — a long calm river, as you say in French. What’s your take on the present and the future? What keeps you going when the going gets tough?

I have only one thing to say – or rather, Confucius: Happiness is not at the top of the mountain, but in the way we climb it.

You are deeply interested in art, design, food, nature, spirituality – all kinds of beauty and fine things in life. I feel wine is such a passionate discipline for many, precisely because it naturally exists at an intersection of all these, and more. Is there another field where you feel the same pull? Or, is there something else you’d consider pursuing besides wine?

Would it surprise you if I told you I’m a healer? You’ll see that at the fair, there’ll be a shaman friend of mine there for the winemakers, he’ll offer healing sessions to anyone interested. Another friend who is a medium will be there too... If you feel like talking to your guardian angel or your great-grandfather, here’s your chance [laughs].

We’re talking about energies, vibrations, and that brings us full circle with my story.

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