Stephane Yerle: "Natural wine isn't about innovation, it's... a vintage trend."

After working at Alain Brumont's, Stéphane Yerle and his wife Cécile, passionate about wine, settled in the Languedoc region and founded Vila Voltaire . Advocating for a more progressive organic viticulture, less constrained by restrictions, Stéphane tells us about his wines and shares his impressions of the closed circle of appellations and the natural wine trend.

Vila Voltaire wines: creative and new vintages made from old vines and Carignan

With Carignan , there's a very fine line to be drawn in terms of ripeness, extraction, and especially aging. Today, we're rediscovering it when we adopt a very gentle extraction method and set aside its roughness.

At Vila Voltaire, we aimed to have two ranges of wine. First, a " thirst-quenching " approach, meaning fresh wines for wine merchants and restaurateurs. To produce these, we work with old vines (Cinsault, Counoise, Aramon, etc.): the large bunches are placed in vats and their water is drained before organic vinification.

In the second range, we return to Carignan and the terroir of Saint Chinian . We focus on freshness and fruitiness, without under-extraction. Achieving this beautiful alchemy requires a delicate balancing act. Our three key elements are: Grenache (which expresses itself through fruit and texture), Carignan (the foundation of Languedoc identity, with its garrigue and balsamic notes), and Syrah (approximately 10% to act as a binder). The aim is to play on this fruit/texture pairing without any harshness.

Stéphane Yerle, winemaker at Vila Voltaire, speaks out: Appellations, natural wines… The deception of conventions

When we started this adventure eight years ago, we didn't have the required percentage of grape varieties to qualify for the Saint-Chinian appellation. So we produced a "vin de pays" (country wine) with Syrah, whereas today we've blended it with Grenache to obtain the appellation. Appellations tend to foster exclusivity; the door isn't very open to outsiders . Luckily, there's human creativity! We, on the other hand, are quite free: with our very small production, we can disregard the overly conventional expectations of certain elitists and journalists. In terms of distribution, we're fortunate to have a good network of agents who supply us to wine shops, restaurants, and so on, which means we're a bit lazy when it comes to marketing.

I'm happy to be able to dedicate myself to my dual role, spending mornings on my tractor as a winemaker and afternoons with clients as a wine consultant. I want to fully embrace this adventure!

More recent than appellations, there's another deception that's raising questions among winemakers: natural wine . Humans have developed a know-how so that each bottle expresses something (terroir, grape variety, etc.). Wine is certainly natural in its genesis, but above all, it's cultural because of the extremely free approach the winemaker brings. The moment a renowned Michelin-starred chef works with meticulous precision and produces a wine lacking in it, the two are completely contradictory. For me, natural wine isn't about innovation; it's more of a vintage trend.

However, to avoid being entirely pessimistic, we can applaud the innovation of natural winemakers. They have dared to bring back aromatic ranges that were once forbidden: cooked, animal notes… this is progress, provided they are controlled! Today, we must reconcile convention and nature, and embrace greater complexity.

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

Ariane (The Grapes)