M. Chapoutier

The Free Bacchus Story

Braille went onto the label of the Monier de la Sizeranne Hermitage in 1994, after a conversation with a blind friend. By 1996 it was on everything the house bottles — including the cheap ones, where it earns nothing and nobody would notice its absence.

Michel Chapoutier took the house over in 1990 and began converting the vineyards to biodynamics in 1991, when the method was still treated as eccentric. It was one of the earliest large-scale conversions anywhere in France, running across holdings in Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie and Saint-Joseph. Almost every other estate that converted that early was a few hectares in size.

The scope needs stating plainly. Chapoutier makes well over two hundred different wines, and the organic and Demeter certification covers the estate vineyards — not the fruit bought in for the négociant blends.

On a portfolio this large that distinction is the whole difference between a certificate and a brand. Check the bottle in front of you rather than the name on it.

What the estate side settles is a different argument. Thirty-five years of certified farming across some of the steepest and most valuable terraces in the northern Rhône is no longer an experiment, and it is a hard answer to anyone still claiming this only works on small parcels.