Adrien Berlioz ‘La Pépie’ 2020

Vinification

Hand-harvested organically farmed Jacquère. Densely planted on silty limestone soils worked with horse-plough. Carefully sorted whole clusters, delicately pressed and fermented in the tank without additions. Natural malolactic fermentation, four months ageing in the tank.

Adrien Berlioz / Domaine du Cellier des Crays

Adrien Berlioz is a young and upcoming producer in Chignin whose wines have become very rare and sought after. This passionate but humble vigneron is the cousin and neighbour of the more well-known Gilles Berlioz. Together they are partly responsible for putting low-yield organically farmed Savoie wines in the crosshairs of sommeliers and cavistes around the world.

Having started in 2006 with a tiny family estate, Adrien now produces a mind-bending array of different cuvées from about 6 hectares. The vineyards are located on the south-eastern outskirts of the French Alps near Chambéry. His holdings are in steep lieu-dits with slopes of 50%. His grapes – a cross-section of indigenous white and red Savoie varieties. His grapes are lovingly tended biodynamically, harvested by hand, and rigidly sorted before vinification.