Stephane Yerle: "I am fighting for a more progressive organic viticulture"

Originally from the Basque Country and the Pyrenees, Stéphane Yerle honed his skills in 1995 with Alain Brumont before launching his own projects. Today, he is a wine production consultant and winemaker with his wife Cécile at Vila Voltaire . His love affair with the Languedoc region, old vines, his advocacy for organic farming and innovation… Stéphane Yerle tells us all about his journey, without holding back!

Stephane Yerle: winemaker and wine consultant in Languedoc

Upon graduating from agricultural engineering school in Angers, the Bordeaux region seemed rather stagnant in terms of land availability. The Languedoc, on the other hand, was more welcoming, both financially and historically, for people venturing into winemaking for the first time . Here in the Mediterranean, I love the history of the grape variety: Carignan performs exceptionally well, and then there's the lifestyle, the olive trees… it's all so charming! Investing in old vines slated for uprooting was a stylistic exercise. At Vila Voltaire, we wanted to demonstrate that these vines have considerable appeal and yield. We find grape varieties that have the capacity to store a great deal of sugar in their trunks, making them much more robust and resulting in consistent style across vintages.

It was online that Cécile and I discovered our winemaker's house, a real gem in the 2000s. With its old adjoining cellar, ancient stonework, and thermal inertia, this house represented a winemaking past and incredible opportunities. Our family project is centered on the idea of ​​working independently, being able to do everything ourselves. If we had been too far removed from the estate, it would have been difficult to reconcile our two professional activities as winemakers and consultants. Today, my consulting work is primarily a means of support: it allows me to be more stable and confident in my winemaking. It also provides independence from the banks… allowing us to be winemakers at our own pace. Conversely, my winemaking brings me a great deal in terms of consulting: I have been advising a client on organic wines in the Corbières region for a long time, so I can share all my expertise as an organic winemaker with them.

Stephane Yerle, winemaker at Vila Voltaire: "I am fighting for a more progressive organic viticulture"

For me, organic farming isn't about "not doing anything," it's about "doing something different" with a different technical approach. I'm fighting for a more progressive organic viticulture , free from restrictions. This requires a lot of monitoring and experimentation, but it's worth it. Indeed, being under the thumb of pharmaceutical companies, research has stopped investing in alternative viticultural approaches for several years now. So, for our part, we're trying to regain freedom in organic viticulture and winemaking.

For us, no longer using sulfites on the grapes is essential. While sulfur is a good antioxidant, it's also a non-selective solvent, so we extract as many beneficial compounds as harmful ones. With our organic methods and the Languedoc climate, we can afford to let things "diffuse," to let them develop naturally. Unfortunately, for too long, organic farming has been neglected by public institutions. One veteran even dared to claim that organic farming wasn't viable in the long run, but that's because we aren't given the resources to improve it. It's up to the government to fund research to develop alternative solutions.

Find the wines of Vila Voltaire ( Languedoc ) on Les Grappes

Ariane (The Grapes)