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Christine Kolb - Founding Partner & Head of Development Sycomore AM: "Our mission: to humanise investment
"Sycomore's teams can see themselves in HECTAR's ambition".
Hectar
9/7/2021
With her sister and brother, this marketing professional is thinking of taking over the family wine estate in Fronsac. The passage through Hectar Tremplin gave them the key to an economically fair and socially viable project
Transmission is a crucial issue in French agriculture and a sensitive subject in viticulture for several reasons. The Clos du Roy, a family property in the Fronsac appellation near Saint-Émilion, offers a beautiful 30-hectare hillside vineyard. At 32 years old, Esther Hermouet wondered whether she could take over the estate with her older sister Clélia and her younger brother Arthur, who was already involved in the production part of the business. "When Hectar opened last fall, I found that its springboard training was a good framework to approach the subject with outside expertise. We took it with my sister," explains this marketing specialist who has now moved to Paris.
A business school graduate, Esther is familiar with the world of wine, having worked for five years at Moët-Hennessy. She is now in charge of global marketing for an international group. So how to avoid what is often the risk of a family transmission, the sale of a domain that is so dear to everyone? "We had to understand what suited us in the Clos du Roy model, which is quite classic in Bordeaux, well thought out but perhaps less in tune with today's aspirations and lifestyles. Hectar Tremplin helped us find an innovative and promising avenue."
The idea? To open the doors of the winery to new winemakers. More than a shared cellar, it's a kind of wine co-working space," says Esther. Winemakers with a little experience could start up with us." The Hermouets give themselves one to two years to refine and test the model, thus convincing themselves to take over the estate. "In any case, it was our intense exchanges with the Hectar Tremplin mentors and this 360-degree vision of a project that determined us to commit."
Thank you to Sycomore Asset Management who allowed us to accompany 12 entrepreneurs during their Tremplin program.
To apply for the Springboard program, click here.
