Olivier Merlin’s first contact with the vines was in 1977. That year, he harvests in a Mâconnais estate and discovers an atmosphere, a family spirit. His passion for the winegrower’s profession began then. After a BTS in viticulture and oenology at the viticultural high school in Beaune, Olivier Merlin worked for two years in a cooperative in the Jura as a winemaker. That’s where he meets Corinne, his wife-to-be.
In June 1985, Olivier leaves for California. He vinified two vintages in Napa, before taking over the Vieux Saint-Sorlin estate on 1 January 1987: four and a half hectares and an estate to be rebuilt which had been in the same family since 1750.
It is here that they decide to live and work, not because of family heritage, but because they like this place and because they have the intuition to make good wines by respecting the basics in the vineyards: working the soil, harvesting by hand. In the cellar: long pressings of whole bunches, fermentation and maturing in oak barrels.
The two brothers, Paul and Théo, born in 1996 and 1993 respectively each have a BTS in viticulture and oenology from the Davayé high school. Théo completed his initial training with three years of studies at the University of Viticulture and Oenology of Changins in Switzerland. He obtained his engineering degree in 2016.
Both of them have multiplied their experiences in other French and foreign vineyards: „All the winegrowers we have worked with have profoundly inspired us and brought us unique experiences, each according to their personalities and values“; say Paul and Théo.
They then went to Australia together for the harvest in the spring of 2017, an experience that introduced them to different approaches of growing and winemaking and of course a new working philosophy.
Paul and Théo will gradually be able to bring their own cultivation methods to make the best of the extraordinary range of terroirs entrusted to them, which extends over 8 hectares in the communes of Davayé, Vergisson, Fuissé and Chaintré.
