Egiategia

Emmanuel Poirmeur, the winemaker behind Egiategia, offers a surprising winemaking concept. Trained as an agricultural engineer and oenologist, he embarked on his winegrowing adventure in 2008 with the creation of his Domaine. He vinifies his wines under the sea in the bay of Saint-Jean-de-Luz. It's not the sea to drink, but it's close!

Our story

Emmanuel Poirmeur, the winemaker behind Egiategia, has created a wine concept that's sure to surprise. Passionate about vines since childhood, Emmanuel logically became an agricultural engineer and oenologist. After an already atypical and varied career in the wine industry, he surprised everyone once again by embarking on his own adventure in 2008. He created Egiategia ex nihilo in virgin vineyard territory: on the French Basque Coast! The story of Egiategia, "the workshop of truths" in Basque, is a recent and impertinent one. It all began with a strong conviction: to create, from a blank page, with the freedom of the pioneers of new wine worlds, the first winery on the French side of the Basque Coast. With this in mind, in 2007 Emmanuel registered a patent for the immersion and ageing of wines under water. Yes, you read that right, underwater! Some of his wines undergo a second alcoholic fermentation in tanks immersed at a depth of 15 metres in the middle of Saint-Jean-de-Luz bay, while his first Chardonnay vines are planted between the ocean and the mountains in 2009: the dream quickly becomes reality and the adventure continues... In 2011, he rehabilitates an old disused 18th century building into a vinification cellar in Socoa.