Domaine de Fontavin

The Chouvets have farmed vines in the southern Rhône for generations, but until 1989 they made and bottled nothing under their own name. That year they took the step: producing, bottling and selling on their own account.

Hélène Chouvet, the seventh generation, came to work full-time in 1996 and runs the house today, based in Courthézon.

Forty-five hectares, all organic since 2008. They are spread across eight separate areas, and that spread is literally the map of what the family has assembled over time: Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Côtes du Rhône and Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise.

Among their plots is bush-trained vineyard with eighty-year-old vines on red clay and galets roulés.