The Château

History of the Château

Personal secretary of the king Louis XIV of France, Phelippeaux de Ponchartrain built in 1655 a hunting place near the forests of the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud, and bought the nice lands on the top of the hillside next to it. Since then, the property stayed in the family, and each generation participated to its construction and its reputation. Henri Allain-Targé brought the French politics of the IIIrd Republic like Gambetta and Villemain. Then, the marriage of Geneviève Allain-Targé with Charles Ferry, brother of Jules Ferry (well known in France for his implications in making school mandatory and free for all the young French) made it the privileged place of the Ferry. Fresnette – their unique descendant – and her husband Edgard Pisani together restored the Château after all the damages of the two World Wars.

Their son, Edouard Pisani-Ferry, agricultural engineer in winemaking, inherited the Château in 1976. He started by building a modern wine storehouse with thermo-regulated tanks, and then in the 90’s expanded the vineyard by buying and exchanging blocks in order to have the quality he wanted. He also started in this period to have environment-friendly ways of growing the vines and making the wine. Since 2000, he is a member of the Terra Vitis organization, which makes an annual control on the whole process.

 

The Château today

After celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Château de Targé, we now want to show the unexplored potentials of our terroirs. We diversify our methods and processes for making the wine and for growing the vines, and get more wines out of it.
In 1998, “Les Fresnettes” (White Saumur Blanc) joined the classics – Traditional Cuvée and Cuvée Ferry (Red Saumur-Champigny). In 2004, we started the Quintessence de Targé (AOC Saumur-Champigny) with the advices of one of the greatest French winemakers, Pierre Seillan. We already received five medals out of the three first vintages. The Rose de Targé was launched in 2006, and the Coteaux de Targé in 2007 (sweet white wine). Finally, you will be able to taste our two new sparkling wines in the year to come, one white and one rosé.

We hired decorator Daniel Kiener for the development of the gîte de charme of the property, which since 2008 permits to our guests to discover the region.