Gourmet Profile | Château Taillefer Lafon: A Passion for the Land and Fine Wine

Isabelle Vallée
A curious and inquisitive blogger

A professional and passionate advocate of digital marketing, Isabelle Vallée has long contributed to Montreal’s cultural vitality by handling communications for the city’s major fashion events. Self-employed since 2011, she helps organizations tackle their online presence challenges by offering 360° web strategy, community management, and personalized content marketing services. In January 2015, Isabelle launched the cultural platform lesbonsplans.ca, where she serves as editor-in-chief and photographer. Curious, a foodie , and a lover of culture, she shares on this blog what to see, what to do, and what to discover on the North Shore, in Laval, and in the Laurentians.

Did you know there’s a château in Laval? Yes, a real château… and they even produce fine wines there! On Montée Champagne (a name that seems made for it),Château Taillefer Lafon—the first winery in Quebec authorized to use the term “Château”—welcomes you to this vineyard born of a deep passion for the terroir, along with plenty of ingenuity and tenacity. A rustic setting where you can discover and purchase an impressive variety of 100% Laval wines. Interview with the winery’s cellar master, Merched Fakhry.

What products are available at Château Taillefer Lafon?

We have two entry-level products: our red wine and our white wine (blended wines made from a variety of grape varieties). These two wines will maintain the same blend of grape varieties over time to offer our customers who enjoy them a relatively consistent taste year after year. We also have our premium single-varietal wines, including our Chardonnay, Muscat, and Riesling, not to mention our two sparkling wines made using the traditional method (where the second fermentation takes place in the bottle, just like champagne) and our ice cider, which is among our customers’ most popular products.

A must-see?

I’d say our rosé sparkling wine—it’s perfect with cakes, chocolate, or any other occasion! (laughs).

What sets Château Taillefer Lafon wines apart from other Quebec wines?

We are one of the largest producers in Quebec to use grapes from “noble vines,” orVitis vinifera vines. This is the primary grape species cultivated in Europe and is the origin of many grape varieties, such as Cabernet, Chardonnay, Riesling, and Muscat. Our vineyard also has hybrid vines, which are crossbreeds widely used in wine production. Unlike noble vines, hybrid vines adapt more easily to cold climates and produce significantly more grapes. However, the quality of the wine is often inferior to that of wine made fromVitis vinifera. Consequently, using noble vines requires more work. In winter, the vines must be covered because they do not tolerate the cold well, and this requires more daily attention. Even though the work is more difficult, it makes a significant difference in the quality of the wine we offer here.

How many bottles do you produce each year?

We produce between 35,000 and 40,000 bottles of wine per year, depending on the year, the vintage, and the harvest. As for cider, we produce about 180,000 bottles per year.

Awards and Honors

Over the years, Château Taillefer Lafon has won numerous awards and distinctions for its products, including a gold medal for its ice wine and a silver medal for its ice cider at the 2004 World Wine Selections. The Château’s ice wine also won the grand Vinofed trophy in 2004, competing against 2,300 other products from 30 countries.

**Château Taillefer Lafon is listed in theSaveurs de Laval directory.