Clotaire Michal poured wine before he made it, working as a sommelier in top restaurants across France and Britain. When he finally found his own vines south of Brouilly, he aimed not for easy, juicy reds but for serious, structured Gamay built to age.
Backstory
After his years in the dining room, Michal spent five years apprenticing with Christophe Peyrus at Clos Marie in Pic Saint-Loup, then worked under Thierry Allemand in the Northern Rhone, where he learned to farm without chemicals on granite soils. In late 2013 he bought a four-hectare property with very old vines in Saint-Etienne-la-Varenne and an existing cellar; the first vintage was 2014. His wife Yuka joined the domaine in 2018, and it has been a collaboration ever since.
The Region
The domaine sits in Saint-Etienne-la-Varenne in the southern Beaujolais, just south of Brouilly. The old Gamay vines grow on soils of pink granite and sand.
Vineyards and Farming
The vines range from 40 to more than 100 years old. Farming is fully organic, with no pesticides, chemicals or synthetic products, and all grapes are hand-harvested.
Winemaking
Fruit is fermented whole-bunch using only naturally occurring indigenous yeasts. Sulfur additions are tiny, around 1 to 3 milligrams per liter during fermentation, with no other additions to the wines. Most cuvees are aged a minimum of 16 months, largely in large used oak barrels.
The Wines
Rather than carbonic, gulpable bottlings, Clotaire and Yuka craft vin de garde Gamay across cuvees such as Terrien, Libation and Libre Pensee, wines made to reward patience.
