France · Bordeaux

We met Laurent Bordes this year in Montpellier and were immediately intrigued by the colourful labels of his bottles as much as the fact that he made nature wine in Bordeaux. We usually do not see many natural winemakers from this region, so we definitely had to try. 

Urban winery
The winery is located in Bordeaux, more precisely in Cité Claveau. The area has around 450 houses and was designed as a garden city in the 1950s. Quite an unusual location for a winery. However, it works well for Laurent at the current size of his project.

Négociant
Laurent is making lots of different cuvées with each their own soul and personality. Laurent does not have his own vineyards, so the grapes comes from farmers, mainly around Bordeaux, all working organically or in conversion. Usually, négociants are associated with low quality wines, but Laurent is proving this stereotype wrong. Négociants can be great winemakers too ;). He believes that buying the grapes allows him to be free in his experiments and accordingly explore how the blends can work together. For instance blending grapes from Beaujolais, Bordeaux and Languedoc or even white and red grapes. 

You can discover and read about all the winemakers that provide the grapes here

Natural fermentation 
All the grapes used in the process are produced organically. A part of his project is to help winemakers to shift from conventional production to organic. The vinification is with minimal intervention, meaning no fining, no filtering and no use of So2. Basically just juice in bottles. 

Each label is done by a different artist and changes every year, just like his cuvées. Meaning that every cuvée is unique. The production of each cuvée is around 750-4.000 btl. but we could only import a limited amount so we'll recommend you to get your hands on them before it is too late ;)