Xavier Vignon 2001 | Cornas

Xavier Vignon came to wine through the laboratory, not the vineyard. He is technical director and head oenologist of the Laboratoire Avignon Oenologie Conseil and advises more than three hundred estates, among them many of the best known in Châteauneuf-du-Pape: Raymond Usseglio, La Gardine, Jérôme Quiot, Beaurenard, La Nerthe, Mont-Redon, Marcoux and Grand Veneur.

In 2002 he set up Xavier Vins, a very small négociant house, and here is the striking part: its raw material is the wine he accepts as payment for the laboratory's services. He is paid in wine and he bottles it.

From that comes the Cuvée Anonyme, blended from barrels selected at estates he advises. It is called anonymous because he cannot say where it comes from: discretion towards his clients prevents him naming the source. It is a bottle that gives up precisely what fine wine usually sells itself on, which is saying where it is from.

One of the houses he advises, Raymond Usseglio, is also in our catalogue.