When he was just a teenager, Simon Tardieux got a job working the vines at the late, lamented Clos Roche Blanche. He learned, on the ground, from Catherine Roussel and Didier Barrouillet. And when he... Read More

When he was just a teenager, Simon Tardieux got a job working the vines at the late, lamented Clos Roche Blanche. He learned, on the ground, from Catherine Roussel and Didier Barrouillet. And when he decided to start making wine he found a like-minded neighbor, Alain Courtault, who had been farming his vines organically since 1998.

They teamed up to create Courtault-Tardieux, a small-scale organic domaine that does everything by hand—and with a light touch, at that. Harvesting is manual, and the extractions are light. There are no interventions in the winery, except a little bit of sulfur to keep things stable. No artificial yeast, no enzymes, no treatments. They don't even use oak.

The idea is to make a pure, joyful wine that expresses its terroir through fruit and pleasure. And the idea works. When we introduced the Courtault-Tardieux wines last year we noted that they reminded us of the Clos Roche Blanche wines: their ability to be effortlessly charming, great with food or just to sip on their own, honest and direct.