Domaine Jean-Louis Tribouley
Latour de France

Jean Louis Tribouley makes wine in the deep south of France in a place called Latour de France, in the company of our little communist collective: Jean-Francois Nicq (Les Foulards Rouge), YoYo, Stephan Morin (Domaine Leonine), and company. He's been making wine for a good while, getting started alongside YoYo in 2002. His wines have been in and out of the States for a while, but we're very happy to report that he's found his home with us. This little cohort is not only an essential part of what our book is about, but they are an appropriate answer to the question of what 'natural wine' means: Hands-off approach, pragmatism, modesty, love.Located in the Pyrénées-Orientales,
Tribouley’s 10.5 hectares farm is cultivated organically comprised of Carignan, Grenache, Syrah, Macabeu and Grenache gris. 
Vines are 20 to 60 years old.
Plots are worked with a horse, a tractor, a caterpillar and by hand.
Rocky and stony soils, composed of schist or a mix of gneiss/granite.

After working for a few months with Gérard Gauby in 2001, I bought 8 hectares of vines in Latour de France and took over the “management” of 2.5 hectares in Calce. Then in 2004, I bought 4 hectares in Maury. We decided to use “bio-agriculture”, to live from the earth while respecting it, to never use chemical weed killers and to plough the soil and, when needed, because the vines are close together, to go back to the ancestral practice of using a mule. We decided to treat the vines to protect them from diseases using natural products to “accompany” the plant and not substitute itself to it.
And finally, not use chemical fertilizers in order to allow the plant to find nutrients on its own with its roots in the depths of the terroir. Our goal is to obtain a product of quality while respecting the soil. It is important to us to work in order to bring the vine to live long. The average yields are about 13hl/hectare. Understanding the exact moment to harvest in order to find the right maturity of the grape is crucial. This moment varies according to the varietals and the vintages. Harvesting is done only by hand and all the grapes are sorted. To avoid crushing, harvesting is done in small crates of 13Kg. We only put grapes that could easily be eaten into the cuvées. We use little or no sulfites, no industrial yeasts, only yeasts on the grapes, the grapes are destemmed and put into their respective cuvées by hand.
The temperature during fermentation is controlled between 18 and 23 degrees, with very little “remontage” and “pigeage”, all of this in order to respect the grapes and to succeed in preserving the aroma of the fruit. We work to produce a “sincere” wine, respecting the vintage and the terroir. I think that the extraordinary quality of a wine comes from its diversity and from our ability to understand a little bit more every year without trying to master everything.”

2021

2020

2019, 2020