Domaine du Chardon Bleu

Our farm is located in the east of the AOC Grignan les Adhémar area, in the south of the Rhône valley. Our vines are planted between 350 and 450 metres above sea level at the entrance to a valley, in a real corridor in Mistral: moreover, when the Mistral starts to blow, we often organise ourselves to go to sheltered plots, at the risk of being unable to work! This configuration offers us very aromatic wines, but often marked by an astonishing freshness for wines from the Rhone Valley, and by notes of spices very present on our red wines (pepper).

Several people have asked us if we have added pepper to our wine for the 2013 vintage! The farm is very fragmented, it is a multitude of small plots that I had to memorize when I started working with my partner, (and I did not always get where I was expected!) and each one has its own characteristics: some are quite steep, and very stony, others more flat are on clay and limestone soil.

Our story

Emmanuel (my companion) and I created our cellar in 2010. Manu was very attached to the vines that he took over following his parents, but he was not satisfied with the sale of his grapes in a cooperative cellar. He had bought a small vat, and on the advice of a winegrower friend, he produced a "wine of friends", he quickly got into the game! On my side, nothing predestined me to become a winegrower, of Norman origin, I should have rather started in cider, or calva, but here I was, I was also very fond of wine, and I met a winegrower!

When in 2010, when it came to the end of the commitment with one of the two cooperative cellars, we seized the opportunity that presented itself to us: we had 4 years to vinify 3 ha of the 9 ha of vines on the farm: the rest of the production was committed until 2014 with the second cooperative cellar. These four years have allowed us to gain experience, to take the time to develop our vintages and to commit our vineyard to organic certification.

The first two years were, to say the least, artisanal! Without a press or wine pump, these vintages were pressed with a ratchet press, with the force of arms! (... Manu's arms... I strongly encouraged him!
) Gradually, we equipped ourselves to take the step, in 2015, and vinify all our grapes on the estate... the rest of the story is now to be written with you!