Our Team
Lardière was born in 1948, on the west coast of France. Growing up, Lardière’s father was highly interested in Ruldolf Steiner’s philosophy of life and agriculture, and these philosophies highly influenced Lardière’s childhood, as he developed a passion for the concept of biodynamics.
After high school, Lardière decided to study viniculture in Davayé (south of Burgundy in the Mâconnais region). He went on to study at the Pasteur Research Institute in Paris, where he dedicated his focus and dissertation to the development and multiplication of malolactic bacteria under the careful tutelage of Jules Chauvet and Professor Bréchot. This led to a job at Maison Loron in Beaujolais, who at the time were sponsoring the research of Chauvet and Bréchot.
In 1970, while he was working at Maison Loron, Lardière met André Gagey who asked him to join Maison Louis Jadot to make wines for the famed estate. For 42 years, Lardière was responsible for the winemaking and bottling of all Maison Louis Jadot wines, as well as handling all of the Louis Jadot domaine vineyards. He travelled around the world and became a great source of inspiration and knowledge for many oenologists. Lardière constantly and consistently expressed the originality of each Burgundy terroir through the wines by favoring a natural approach to producing wine and above all, making wine with feeling. In an interview in 2008, Lardière explained: “Some wines are like mystery books that you read fast, enjoy and forget. Burgundy is like a classic that you take in slowly, assimilate and always remember.”
In 2012, Lardière retired, and turned over his responsibilities as Technical Director of Maison Louis Jadot to Frédéric Barnier, who he had been mentoring and grooming in the previous years.
In 2013, Maison Louis Jadot announced its first venture outside of France with the purchase of the Résonance Vineyard, located in Oregon’s Yamhill-Carlton AVA. Lardière was so excited about the project that he decided to come out of retirement to oversee the production of the wines, taking his years of experience in Burgundy winemaking and applying it to Oregon terroir. The Resonance portfolio will debut over the next two years.
