Laurence Manya Krief spent her career in the Paris textile industry as a sales director before deciding that the materialistic environment she had built her professional life around no longer suited her. At 35, she relocated to Banyuls-sur-Mer near her hometown of Perpignan, purchased abandoned terraced vineyards on steep coastal slopes, and became a winemaker. The local nickname Yoyo—which she had always carried—became the name of her domaine.
Backstory
Krief converted her vineyards to organic farming from the outset in 2008, a commitment that was as much philosophical as practical given the terrain she was working. The abandoned plots she took on had survived because machines could not reach them. She decided to keep it that way, using her mule Uma and horse labor to work land that conventional viticulture had left behind. The estate now farms around five to seven hectares of old vines between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees.
The Region
Banyuls-sur-Mer sits at the southernmost tip of the French Mediterranean coast in Roussillon, a few kilometers from the Spanish border. The appellation is best known for its fortified wines, but Krief produces exclusively dry wines from the same ancient parcels. The black schist soils absorb heat and drain quickly, forcing vines to root deeply and producing wines of concentrated aromatic intensity and natural salinity.
Vineyards and Farming
The terraces of Banyuls are completely incompatible with mechanical farming, making them among the most labor-intensive vineyard sites in France. Krief works her schist plots by hand and with Uma the mule, relying on compost made from fruit pulp, feather meal, and crab shells rather than chemical fertilizers. Her vines are mostly century-old Grenache and Carignan, varieties that have adapted over generations to the heat, wind, and rocky terrain.
Winemaking
Whole-cluster vinification is standard across the domaine. Krief uses carbonic maceration to produce fresh, lively wines from old-vine Grenache and Carignan that might otherwise produce heavy, overripe results in this hot Mediterranean climate. Sulfite additions are minimal at 1 gram per hectoliter. Wines are not fined or filtered. The goal, as she describes it, is to capture the warmth of the Mediterranean sun, the salt of the sea breeze, and the mineral character of black schist in a single glass.
The Wines
The domaine produces nine cuvées including La Negra, Akoibon, La Tranchée, Alma, Vent debout, Restaké, KM31, La Vierge Rouge, and Bateau Ivre. The range covers reds, rosés, and whites, predominantly from Grenache Noir and Carignan in various combinations. These are often cited as the most elegant and poised wines of the Banyuls appellation, achieving finesse from fruit that most producers push toward power.
