Les Sources d’Agapé

I am a young winegrower from a family without a winegrowing tradition, who set up his own wine domaine - 6 hectares in Saint-Amour and 0.5 hectares in Juliénas - in November 2018. Since obtaining my BTS (advanced technician’s certificate) in viticulture and oenology in 2013, I have worked with various wine producers, including "La Soufrandière", the Bret Brothers biodynamic wine domaine in Vinzelles, Southern Burgundy. I have chosen to convert my domaine to organic growing, I plough the soil under the vines and maintain a grass strip in the middle of the rows. I tend to the Gobelet vines in the traditional manner, without trellising, tying them individually to preserve as much foliage as possible. My single 6-hectare plot of Saint-Amour is separated from my neighbours by embankments and hedges. I harvest by hand, transporting the grapes in small tubs to preserve their quality. In the winery, I vinify the grapes in whole bunches, using indigenous yeasts, semi-carbonic maceration and keeping the temperatures in the vats around 20°C. I then de-vat using plastic tubs (rather than a harvest pump) to ensure the grapes reach the press undamaged. In terms of inputs, I use only nitrogen (inerting for semi-carbonic maceration), nutrients for the yeasts (sparingly) on only a few vats, and SO2 in small quantities. I have created 5 different wines, the equivalent of 15,000 bottles, with an average yield of 31 hl/ha in 2019: -Juliénas “Les Mouilles” -Saint-Amour “Côte de Besset” -Saint-Amour “Petit Besset” -Saint-Amour “Mont Besset”