Domaine de Trévallon

The Free Bacchus Story

Eloi Dürrbach planted Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah on the rocky slopes of the Alpilles in 1973, which the appellation rules for Les Baux-de-Provence did not permit. The authorities agreed to accommodate it, then changed their minds. When the rules capped Cabernet Sauvignon at 20%, Trévallon was planted half Cabernet and half Syrah, and replanting would have been ruinous — so the Dürrbachs refused, and accepted demotion out of the appellation altogether. Trévallon spent years producing one of the most celebrated wines in Provence under a plain Vin de Table designation.

That episode concentrated rather than damaged its reputation among the people who had actually tasted it. The farming has been certified organic under Ecocert for decades, helped considerably by the site: garrigue scrubland, rocky limestone and a mistral that Dürrbach regards as one of his most reliable disease controls. Organic viticulture is not especially difficult here: the real challenge is drought stress on soils that hold almost no water.

The red, a roughly equal blend of Cabernet and Syrah, ages with an intensity that most Provençal red cannot sustain past five years, and appears on any serious list of southern French reference points.

Dürrbach's daughter Ostiane now manages the estate, and the farming is unchanged. The appellation rules, meanwhile, remain what they are, a reminder that the categories wine is sold in and the quality inside the bottle are only loosely related.