Raphael Beysang came to Beaujolais as an outsider -- an Alsatian with a grandfather who made wine and parents who ran restaurants, trained in the natural wine cellars of Alsace and Auvergne before landing in Saint-Germain-Nuelles with a few old Gamay vines and his partner Emelie Hurtubise in tow. That combination of inherited instinct and learned craft turned out to be well suited to southern Beaujolais, a subzone that has attracted some of the most committed natural winemakers working in France today.
Backstory
Raphael grew up in Alsace, the son of restaurateurs, with a winemaker grandfather on one side of the family. He trained under Patrick Meyer in Nothalten and Jean-Marc Dreyer, two of Alsace's most uncompromising natural producers, before moving to Auvergne to work with Patrick Bouju and Vincent Marie. It was in Auvergne that he met Emelie Hurtubise, originally from Quebec, who had arrived there via Japan and a connection to winemaker Justine Loiseau. Raphael moved to Beaujolais in 2017 after being offered the opportunity to take over old vines, and Emelie followed in 2018. Together they set up GAEC Lapins des Vignes -- the Rabbits of the Vines -- and began building their domaine from scratch.
The Region
Saint-Germain-Nuelles sits on the northwestern edge of Lyon, in the southern part of Beaujolais. The soils here are granite-based with a mosaic of schist and sandy alluvials, distinctly different from the limestone of neighbouring appellations. The area sits within what natural wine insiders call Team Sud Bojo -- an informal collective of radical vignerons committed to demonstrating what southern Beaujolais can do when it is farmed and vinified with genuine care.
Vineyards and Farming
Beysang and Hurtubise farm around 7 hectares biodynamically, working primarily with Gamay across a range of soils and vine ages. The vineyards include old parcels they took over from Nicolas Dubost, a retiring natural vigneron who sold them his cellar, along with additional plots accumulated over their first years in the region. Farming follows biodynamic principles with no synthetic inputs of any kind.
Winemaking
The approach is zero-zero: no additions, no fining, no filtration. Most wines are fermented as whole bunches for approximately three weeks, then aged in large wooden foudres before bottling. The couple bottles primarily in recycled one-litre bottles marked with a shoulder star, a nod to local tradition and a deliberate statement about how wine should be treated -- as an everyday pleasure, not a collectible object.
The Wines
The range includes cuvees such as Ernest, J'aime, and Le Nouveau Litre, all built from Gamay with the funky, bright, and deeply satisfying character that defines the best natural Beaujolais. The wines are highly sought in natural wine circles and sell out quickly through a small international importer network. Production is deliberately limited to what the estate's own vines can provide.
