Domaine des Collines des Louves

               If you look carefully, you can make out young vines in the stony soil.

I spent a couple of hours with Chris Di Donato at his estate, Domaine des Collines des Louves outside the Pic St Loup village of Valflaunès.  but Chris is not making Pic St Loup.  This was a wine visit quite unlike any other.

Various circumstances led Chris to a complete change of direction in his life and he came to Valflaunès where his parents-in-law have a home and a hectare of uncultivated garrigue.  And he decided that he was going to make wine, but a wine quite unlike any other.   A neighbour sold him another nine hectares, so that he now has ten hectares of land, of which five hectares are planted with vines, à la méthode ancienne in 1.50 metre squares, and all bush vines.  For one small plot Chris has chosen more conventional French varieties, and indeed with the one exception of Chardonnay, southern varieties namely, Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Marsanne and Viognier, from which he produced his first wine in 2023   These must be the only bush vines Chardonnay in the whole of France. Born in Lyon, of Italian parents, he loves Condrieu, hence the Viognier. And for these vines he uses chestnut stakes, for the northern Rhone Valley method of training, en echalas, so that the vines shade their grapes during in the heat of the summer.  However, for his larger plot he has followed his Sicilian roots, planting Grillo, Ansonica, Cataratto and Carricante. They will come into production this year.   Both plots are east-facing.

But first Chris had to clear the land.  For three years he worked as a ‘landscape gardener’, heroically removing scrub, deciding which trees to remove, namely the invasive pine trees, and which to plant, such as green and white oaks, as well as juniper and arbousier, or strawberry trees. He has added fruit trees, and built dry stone walls, and also intends to build a small chapel from the stones that he has removed from his vineyards. There are kilometres of quite deep ravines crossing the land.   The land is virgin and has never been cultivated and never treated with anything foreign, and certainly no fertilisers.  For some manure, Chris has a pair of elderly horses, saved from the knacker’s yard, Esmeralda and Marechal.  They companionably followed us as we walked round the land, and at one moment along the remains of an old Roman road.

As for making the wine, he does not have a conventional cellar, but a mobile press, made out of a large barrel which he takes through the vineyard.   For the first two vintages, the harvest has been during the third week of August.  The winemaking is as simple as possible.  The grapes are destemmed and pressed, and the fermentation takes place above ground, lasting about 7 - 10 day and then the juice, with the lees, is put in large 54 litres glass  dame jeannes and buried.  Chris does not want the micro-oxygenation which you would have with an amphora.  He bottles the wine as it is needed.  Production so far is minute, just 250 litres for the first vintage, in other words just five dame jeannes.  Eventually he is planning an underground cellar.

We tasted both vintages:

The 2023 was amber in colour, with apples and honey on the nose, and notes of white peaches.  Very good acidity.  Quite honeyed, with  a long finish.  Comparisons are odious, but it reminded me of a lightly sweet wine from the Loire valley, but with more subtlety and nuances.  More acidity, but more honey.   

In 2024 Chris made just two dame jeannes.  He had problems with mildew which limited the production.  This was more golden in colour, with some elegant concentration, firmer in the palate with less obvious honey.   Again with nuances of flavour that evolve and develop in the glass.   And there was an astonishing purity of fruit.  A wine quite unlike any other.

And the price is 350 € and so far he has sold 15 bottles.   The wine would have to be hand sold, so his target audience would probably be the kind of restaurant that can explain originality to their customers.  I felt very privileged to have the opportunity to visit and taste,  

It was a very special place, with a very calm and healing atmosphere.  You sense that Chris is very thoughtful,  not to mention brave to undertake such a project, with such determination and without even knowing if he could make wine. There is no doubt he can, and he is creating a little paradise the midst of the Languedoc vineyards.