Agriculture at Briord

The rich land of the Vendée bocage is favourable to the production of fodder consumed on the farms that make up the territory. Livestock is therefore very present: cattle, pigs and goats form the bulk of the herds. Moreover, the Land of Briord was for a very long time marked by a strong wine-growing activity based on Muscadet, the famous local grape variety. In the 18th century, the vine was the main income of Joseph Charette de Briord, known as one of the best winegrowers of the Nantes county. Thanks to the writings that make up the exceptional documentary collection of the Briord Collections, it is possible to retrace this activity very precisely; For 36 parcels of vines, entirely worked by hand of course, the estate produced until 1770 more than 1,000 hectolitres and stored 240 barrels in its very large cellar of 800 m² of floor area. The installations remain and the great cellar of Briord is a preserved witness of this activity through the ages. At the end of the 20th century, under the regrettable effect of the grubbing-up subsidies, most of the Briord vineyard and this economic activity disappeared. There nevertheless remains, near the historic kitchen garden and its water tower, a broad avenue of "witness vines". As part of the Terre de Briord historic restoration project, this "witness vine" parcel will be cared for and replanted, to illustrate what this essential activity of the estate was over the centuries past. It was also essential to bear witness to the fundamentally agricultural character of the estate. Part of the lands of the château of Briord is therefore entrusted to the good care of the two neighbouring farms of the property, which have moreover always "been part of" the châtellenie of Briord since the Middle Ages. The Métairie des Normandes, a farm worked by Mathieu Gravouil, his brother Quentin and their father Xavier, to the north of the estate, and the farm of La Puillière, taken over in December 2021 by two young farmers, on the retirement of Mr and Mrs Averty, whose family had worked the land for nearly a century. The new farmers Gwenaël and Ewen Le Pavec will practise, on the lands entrusted to them, an exclusively organic agriculture, which of course was an indispensable condition for a collaboration with Terre de Briord. But beyond this, they will continue and develop the educational-farm programme created 20 years ago by their predecessors, a programme that has concretely explained what a farm is to more than 70,000 visitors and 57,000 children. Some of the farm's 300 goats will therefore be called upon to maintain the meadows to the east of the estate!