Domaine de Chaude Ecuelle (= meaning "hot bowl"), owes its name to the tradition of vineyard workers warming up their meals in terra-cotta bowls out in the vineyards, is a small family estate managed by the VILAIN family for the last several generations.
The VILAIN brothers Henri and Clovis, born in 1907 and 1911, were growers who sold the wine in bulk. The family’s next generation, Gabriel and Lucette started bottling and selling the wine under their own labels. History and tradition remains important, to this day some parcels bear the names of those who planted it: plot “Henri” and plot “Clovis”.
Claire and Gerard VILAIN, the current owners, work and manage the Domaine with their children Marianne, Marie-France, Guillaume and Jeanne. All the work in the vineyards and cellar is made solely by the family.
The vineyards are all planted on the typical Chablis soils, made up of clay-limestone marls from the Kimmeridgien geologic time period. Rich in fossils including some small shells which testify to the presence of salt water in that area millions of years ago, undoubtedly explains where the Chablis wines get their mineral, iodized character from.