Alexandre studied French literature at High School then was set on a career in photography, but around 2006 all that changed with a desire to work closer to nature. Photography took a backseat, and he started working at a winery in his native Provence while doing market gardening and apiculture on the side. After looking for a new challenge, he began in 2016 what would be a turning point in his career (and his ways of thinking about winemaking) when he started with Guillaume Lefevre at Domaine de Sulauze on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille. It’s a large property, around 30 hectares, but practicing organics and biodynamics so during the next four years Alexandre would slowly “unlearn” many of the practices from his previous experience. He came to realize that what he had made and drunk before, and what he had been taught by those around him as being “good wine” was in fact not what he wanted to make himself. It completely re-set his ideas of what wine could be. Armed with this new mindset, he moved in 2016 with his family to the southern Ardèche around Valvignères, both a heartland of natural winemaking and a place where he was sure he could find affordable vines. For the next couple of years, Alexandre made Vin de Pirate, buying grapes from friends, and making his own wines, until in 2018 after some successful crowdfunding and lots of help from friends, he was able to acquire 2.5 hectares of vines and launch Les Lendemains qui Chantent.

He's now the proud owner of four hectares – Grenache Noir, Syrah, Viognier and Chardonnay – around the village of Montfleury on clay-limestone. The vines are at altitude, around 1000 feet, but in spite of that, it’s still hot. Fortunately for his vines, the mistral brings down cold air from the plateau to the north at 3600 feet to mitigate the heat. His work is organic, and the grapes are certified or in conversion – all his wines from the 2024 vintage will be fully certified. Harvesting is always by hand, nothing used in the vines except limited doses of copper and SO2. In the cellar, he started out with an old basket press but moved with the times when he acquired a pneumatic press that he found in Normandy which was used for making cider. For fermentation, he uses fibreglass and stainless-steel tanks and both barrel and demi-muid for ageing. He prefers not to use SO2 at any stage in the process and manages to have a stability in his wines that he attributes to the lees. Gilles Azzoni gave Alexandre the idea of using the CO2 that was being released during the fermentation in one  tank and directing it via small tube to other tanks where he wanted to do a full carbonic maceration. No need to spend money buying CO2 and no waste!

We’re very proud of this new batch of wines from our first producer in the Ardèche. They have the potential to be big and bold yet their balance keeps them fluid and so easy to enjoy. Congratulations Alexandre!