The vines are located between Alba la Romaine and Valvignères on shallow limestone and marl soils. Sylvain worked for other winemakers for a long time after his Viti-Oeno training in Mâcon in 2001 (same class as Andrea Calek and Blandine Chauchat from Mas Foulaquier!). He did his training at Château des Rontets in Pouilly-Fuissé with Claire and Fabio Montrasi, two young architects who, like him, were not predestined for this profession. He exchanged and learned a lot from these "neo-winegrowers" who work in the "right way": green work in the vineyard, manual harvesting, conversion to organic, vinification and maturing in barrels, minimal use of sulphites and oenological inputs.
In 2003, he went to J.M. Stéphan in Côte Rôtie to work in the vineyard and in the cellar at Le Mazel where he continued to learn about natural wine.
Driven for a long time by the desire to make his own wine, he set up in 2010 in the south of the Ardèche on 4 hectares of vines previously worked by the Gaec du Mazel. From the outset, he was lucky enough to start with plots of land that were managed using organic methods and were set up for quality production. Preserved from weed killers and modern chemistry for several decades, the soil is healthy. Sylvain Bock's farming practices are obviously aimed at respecting the structure and microbial life of the soil.
The vineyards are located between Alba la Romaine and Valvignères on soils shallow limestone-limestone and marl-limestone. Thus, the roots are quickly in contact with the mother rock, which confers a lot of minerality to the wines. Finally, the days are very sunny, the nights are often cool with the Mistral as the dominant wind. In short, this almost ideal climate allows us to produce fresh and balanced wines, both red and white.
At the end of 2013, Sylvain recovers 2.5 ha of additional vines (grenaches and gamay) located between the villages of Alba la Romaine and Sceautres. We then leave the valley at soils mainly limestone and we climb north towards the Coiron volcanic plateau (basalts). These new plots benefit from the influence of two very different and complementary types of soil . On the hillsides, with a south-south-western exposure at an altitude of 280 m, this cooler and later soil allows the production of fine, floral, fresh, delicate wines... Finally, this "magic" place is secluded and privileged: the vines (currently in conversion to AB) are surrounded by woods and wasteland. A very promising and unique terroir where gamays and magnificent goblet Grenache cohabit harmoniously.
The yields are low (20 to 50 hl/ha), l’Grape varieties varied: the syrahs are about 30 years old; merlot and white grenache are in their forties, the chardonnays and gamays are 25 years old. Finally, the age of the black grenaches varies between 30 and 50 years depending on the plot.
Concerning the vinificationsThe guiding idea is to extend the organic approach from the vine to the cellar. The aim is to produce a natural wine (without the use of oenological or chemical inputs) from manually harvested grapes. Meticulous work in the vineyard allows us to obtain healthy, concentrated grapes, as well as an optimal maturity. Native yeasts carry out the fermentation. The wines are unfined, unfiltered and without added sulphites. It is best to keep them in good conditions. As a general rule, they are best six months after bottling (the batch number on the back label mentions the initials Grape variety and the date of bottling) and at their peak 2-3 years after bottling. Finally, they are often more open after being decanted.
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