By his own admission, Sébastien Godret came late to winemaking, in his early 40s, and it all happened quite accidentally.

He was born in northern Burgundy, 80 miles to the south of Paris in the beautiful cathedral town of Sens. A man of many talents, he’s a photographer, curateur commissaire d'exposition creating and organizing cultural events and exhibitions, and producer of radio documentaries and books. But as he increasingly participated at events around organic agriculture and winemakers, he began to pick up a tiny plot of land here and another tiny plot there in the Languedoc around Corbières. Not knowing what to do with these pieces of land, he thought it may be a good idea to plant some vines. And that’s how it began.

Sébastien started his winemaking adventure in earnest around 2015, learning from friend and (now retired) winemaker, Geoffroy Marchand at the Domaine l’Etoile du Matin in Feuilla, in the very south of the Languedoc on the border of the Roussillon. Geoffroy was a proponent of biodynamics and worked with indigenous yeasts, no enzymes/filtering/fining, and limited/no sulphites and Sébastien applied those same principals when making his first wines in 2018. He doesn’t plough the soils either, preferring to keep all that carbon where it belongs.

He currently spends his time between his home, family, and work in Dijon, Burgundy, and his other life a 6-hour drive away as winemaker with 1.5 hectares of vines in the Languedoc villages of Feuilla and Treilles, where he has vines of Carignan, Cinsault, Grenache and Syrah on a mix of limestone, schist, and lava. He makes only 2500 bottles a year over five different wines but is happy with that and doesn’t envisage taking on any more work. His project is small scale but sustainable and what he is doing, he’s doing well and with conviction. He is approaching the completion of a 500-day cellar extension which he has undertaken with the help of friends, and you can see some photos below. It’s been long; longer than it could have taken but he wanted to do it “properly” which meant for Sébastien buying trees locally and having beams and other timber cut to size at a nearby wood mill instead of buying the timber ready cut imported (probably) from another country. Other raw materials he used during the construction such as clay and straw were also obtained locally.

For now, we have two of his reds - the Carignan Tous Egos, Sacre Sapiens and Mourvèdre Tout Est Possible, Meme le Beau, whose names are inspired by a mix of poetry and politics. You can tell his wines are from the hot south, but they are manipulated gently, with little extraction, relatively low alcohol, and great balance.

Currently available