Château de Lavernette

Where are you from? I come from Château de Lavernette. I was born in Mâcon, I have lived between Chaintré and Leynes since I was born. Why this job? What is your background? I studied at Davayé then at the viticultural high school in Beaune where I did my BTS Viticulture Oenology. After that I went to Montpellier to ENSAM to do a degree in the wine and spirits trade and its quality marks and then I went to make wine in New Zealand. I wandered around Tahiti a little bit on the way. After that I just made a quick return to France to go to the United States to make wine between Napa and Sodoma in Carneros. I met my wife Kerry at the estate, she was an oenologist. I was a bit of an intern. I returned to France. We settled down to go into partnership with my parents. At the end of 2005, we started working organically and biodynamically. In 2007, we bought vines in Pouilly-Fuissé to be able to bring something to the estate and to be able to really partner with the parents. Why here? I didn't choose the Château, it kind of chose me. At first, I thought I'd stay in the United States, work there a bit more. We still have a good life in the United States, California is quite nice. But in the end I was called back by traditions. I realized that in California I was going to be able to earn a lot of money, do lots of things, have a lot more time, but I was a little disappointed because it was more complicated to create an estate. It was easy to be able to work as a onemaker, or as a head of cultivation, but in fact it's either you make grapes that you then give to someone else to take care of, or you make wine from the grapes that someone else has made, or you go into business and sell the wines that others have made. But you can never try to shape something from start to finish. Whereas we had everything we wanted here at Château de Lavernette, with a beautiful tool to do what we wanted to do. So it also seemed logical to come to the Château. Your favorite place on the Grand Site? I love La Roche de Solutré. La Roche de Vergisson too, by the way. Since I was born here, I've been coming here since I was a kid. It seems smaller to me than before. It's a magnificent region. We're very lucky. South Mâconnais, Mâconnais, North Beaujolais, all that area. These are my landscapes, this is what I like. I also like going to the Grange du Bois, Cenves. For the winegrower, it is a disconnection from the winegrowing landscape, in a few meters you can completely change the landscape. Your best memory on the Grand Site? The day we harvested for the first time the vine that was our first purchase of Pouilly-Fuissé, our eldest son who was born. The same day as the harvest date. It was a good harvest that day.