Terra Laura le blog du Domaine de Montcy

TERRA LAURA: WHEN A DREAM COMES TRUE

Four years ago, Laura was one of these executive women travelling around the world for an international food Company. She was expecting her second baby thinking that the first one didn’t have a lot of time to see her mother and would have spoken Portuguese (the nanny was Brazilian) or French (they were living in Switzerland), before Italian (her mother tongue).

Was it a pre baby blues, an almost forty existential crisis, the effect of a jet lag or just a sudden insight and her passion for wine, she thought: I would become a wine grower!

One can say the ground was favourable. Laura grew up in Imperia (Italia). Since three generations, her family was making extra virgin olive oil. She studied food science in Milano and started her career in foodservice. In daily contact with the professional Italian gastronomy Chefs, she decided to educate her palate. She attended an evening school and become wine waiter. Then she moved to Switzerland to join her French husband and got an international position in foodservice.

It took to Laura less than a year to make her dream happen. Firstly, she established the main criteria to select the desired property: a top quality AOC wine in a well known region, a professional team of experts to help her managing the transition, a potential to develop the sales at the location and abroad and last but not least a budget at the level of her savings!

Half pregnant, Laura spent her free time travelling in Italy and France, visiting properties, tasting wines, meeting people, making business plans.

End of 2006, her determination was rewarded. Laura felt in love with Domaine de Montcy. Not only was she able to identify herself to the wine, to feel at home in this fantastic region of Loire Valley, to establish extremely good relationships with the former owner and his team, but also the property was ready to be converted to organic, the potential to develop oenotourism at Cheverny (996 inhabitants, 28 Renaissance castles listed!) was there and all the sales were done to French restaurants and wines shops.

Next step for Laura was to convince the banks to support her project, to find a house and move the family. In the meantime, she gave her resignation, her husband found a job close by and off we go!

The deal was signed on September 7, 2007 and Laura started her first harvest 5 days later. TERRA LAURA was born!