Jean Michel Bonnichon

Château la Renommée

Region :
Bordeaux
APPELLATION :
Saint-Emilion, Saint-Emilion grand cru, Bordeaux

Anecdotes about the domain

Becoming a winemaker is learned vintage after vintage. Already the 4th! But I am above all and for a long time a consumer like you. I like to discover and drink any kind of wine without exclusivity, as long as I find it good. My contacts with our customers are rich. In particular, I like the discussion and the experience of tasting at the property or in a wine salon to help the wine lover learn to identify or refine his or her tastes, and more often than not, to help him or her approach to wine become more relaxed. One can just as easily indulge in the simple pleasure of a shared glass as in tasting, with all the senses on the alert, by putting one's sensory memory to the test. My greatest pleasure: to detect the satisfaction in the eye of the wine lover!

The domain's short story

Little, little, little? With wine, it is always a great story, otherwise you shouldn't get into the wine business. Mine is a conversion. My driving force has been to leave busy offices for more than 20 years, to encourage work that leads to a tangible final result and encourages meetings. I couldn't think of anything better than making wine, a dream in fact! To move from a dream to a sustainable construction, I joined forces with other enthusiasts: Jean-Noël Doublet, my first cousin, first of all and then Chantal Sclafer, initially my neighbour, both 30 vintages in Saint-Emilion to their credit! A great wine is always a collective work, the result of the meticulous work of the workers in the vineyard and the cellar master, of a multitude of details and right actions throughout the year. My credo: to understand what nature offers us and to transmit it in explanations and bottles.

The winemaker's pride

The property is made up of vineyards in the Saint-Emilion appellation area but also in Castillon and Bordeaux. If their core range is the Saint-Emilion Grand Cru, they attach great importance to producing different wines with varied characters to accompany various occasions. Resolutely oriented towards quality, they have the concern to do the best for the pleasure of their customers without forgetting that they remain the first consumers of their wines. This is reflected in the vineyard by working the soil without inputs, the use of green manure, preventive and reasoned treatments, no use of antibotritys. In the cellar, after manual and mechanical harvesting, the grapes are sorted by densimetric bath. The vinification and maturation take place in uncoated cement vats, stainless steel vats, 500-liter barrels or traditional barrels. They are not currently involved in a label approach so as not to add a straitjacket to a sufficiently complex world, and they are guided by the desire to strive for the best of their terroir. The key words of the domain: quality, pleasure, meeting, sharing, discovery, curiosity. The easiest way is to come and see them for a visit of the property and the cellar, a discovery of the landscapes of Saint-Emilion in a Segway gyropod or a stay in their cottages!