Natural Wine Producers: Working With Nature
Portraits and interviews with the world's finest natural wine producers — farmers and winemakers who work in harmony with terroir, minimal intervention, and a deep respect for the land.
Sébastien David
A 15th-generation grower in a family farming since 1634, Sébastien David makes biodynamic, sulfur-free Cabernet Franc in clay and amphorae in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil.
Domaine le Facteur
Le Facteur is the playful natural side of Mathieu Cosme's Vouvray estate, its cuvees named for the bicycle-riding postmen once toasted with a glass of Chenin.
Romain Petiteau La Tourlaudiere
Romain Petiteau leads the 21-hectare Domaine de la Tourlaudiere in Muscadet, converting a 17th-century family estate to organic viticulture and exploring low-intervention winemaking with Melon de Bourgogne.
Autour de l'Anne
A former Radiohead roadie quit corporate life after a car crash and now makes what she calls Loiredoc wines: Languedoc fruit raised in the Loire.
Domaine Le Briseau
A pioneering Coteaux-du-Loir estate founded in 2002 by Christian Chaussard and Nathalie Gaubicher, whose zero-added-anything Chenin and Pineau d'Aunis helped shape Loire natural wine.
Domaine Calvez Bobinet
An eighth-generation Saumur vigneron and a former professional dancer farm under four hectares organically, aging Cabernet Franc and Chenin in cellars carved straight into the region's tuffeau limestone.
Ludovic Chanson
Former pharmaceutical researcher Ludovic Chanson traded his lab coat for a vineyard in 2009 and now farms 6.5 hectares of certified-organic Chenin Blanc in Montlouis-sur-Loire with minimal intervention.
Jeremy Quastana
A history student turned Loire vigneron, trained by Marcel Lapierre and Olivier Lemasson, who makes vivid, low-sulfur Gamay, Cot and Pineau d'Aunis from two hectares near Cheverny.
Marie Thibault
From a biology background to Touraine's hillside slopes, Marie Thibault cultivates just four hectares of 50-year-old Chenin, Gamay, Grolleau, and Côt with Ecocert organic certification, crafting vivid, low-intervention wines in the quiet Azay-le-Rideau appellation.
Les Terres Blanches
Benoit and Celine Blet founded Les Terres Blanches in 2004 in Oiron at the gates of Anjou, farming 10 biodynamic hectares of schist and limestone soils with Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc, and Gamay de Bouze, replanting half the estate from their own massale selections.
Les Cailloux du Paradis
Claude and Etienne Courtois farm over 40 grape varieties on flinty Sologne soils, making zero-input natural wines that have defined the Loire's radical edge since Claude began organic farming in the 1970s.
Jean-Pierre Robinot
A former Paris natural-wine bar owner turned Loire vigneron, fermenting sulfur-free Chenin and Pineau d'Aunis in limestone caves beneath his vines.