Natural Wine Producers: Working With Nature

Former geologist Marc Houtin founded La Grange aux Belles in Anjou in 2004, and together with partners Julien Bresteau and Gérald Peau, now farms fifteen organic hectares of black schist to make some of the Loire's most vital natural wines.

A new-wave Anjou vigneron working barely two hectares, Fabrice Chaillou devotes almost everything to Chenin Blanc, farmed and vinified as naturally as possible.

A four-generation Cheverny family estate, Le Petit Chambord is the standard-bearer for Romorantin, the rare Loire grape that Francois Cazin helped rescue with the creation of the Cour-Cheverny appellation.

A tiny, horse-ploughed Anjou estate where Adrien de Mello farms schist vineyards biodynamically and makes wild-fermented natural wines with no added inputs.

After decades guiding Anjou growers into organics, oenologist Clément Baraut set up his own tiny Savennières domaine, coaxing additive-free Chenin from schist and volcanic rock.

A long-certified biodynamic Muscadet estate where Fred Niger Van Herck bottles single-rock cuvees and ferments in a cellar of more than seventy terracotta amphorae.

A certified-organic Touraine estate in Theseco-farmed since 2021 by Simon Tardieux and Jerome Gal under the principles of peasant agriculture.

A jazz musician turned vigneron, Francois Blanchard farms a single old-vine parcel of clay and silex in the Touraine and makes intuitive, low-intervention wines that he describes in the language of music.

A revered Loire couple farming 30 hectares of old-vine Chenin Blanc biodynamically across Montlouis and Vouvray, the Chidaines have become a benchmark for finesse and purity in Touraine white wine.

A self-taught Anjou paysan working a handful of hectares of Chenin and animals in Rablay-sur-Layon, bottling sulfur-free Loire wines of striking purity.

A tiny, horse-ploughed Anjou estate where Adrien de Mello farms schist vineyards biodynamically and makes wild-fermented natural wines with no added inputs.

A benchmark Muscadet estate built parcel by parcel by Marc Ollivier and now led by Remi Branger and Gwenaelle Croix, with an unusually high share of cru vineyards.