Les Pieds sur Terre

Natural wine in Comté country

With a master's degree in international law in hand, and after a few years working in a prefecture, Valentin decided to return to his winegrowing roots, carried away by his readings of the great masters of agricultural thought. Rudolf Steiner, visionary biodynamist, Masanobu Fukuoka, Japanese farmer and leader of natural agriculture, or Matthew B. Crawford and his praise of manual labour. After a formative period in Alsace with the no less influential Pierre Frick and Bruno Schueller, he returned to Poligny in 2014 and began to take over the family estate, which he renamed Les Pieds sur Terre.

Valentin's grandfather, who ran a sawmill in the village, had planted around ten hectares of vines on the hillsides of the commune, back in the 1970s, with his son Jean-Luc. Plots such as Trouillots, facing south, with its rich soil of red and grey marl, Saint-Savin and its limestone scree or Les Frins from which the Chardonnay of the crémant is made.

Although they sold the grapes to the cooperative until 1985, they then started to make their own wine, and gained a reputation in the region and beyond for their vins jaunes, macvins and other local specialities.

Very involved in the regional farmers' confederation, and increasingly aware of the environmental and health issues surrounding the winegrowing profession, Jean-Luc stopped using herbicides as early as 1999, favouring soil cultivation throughout the estate. The foundations had been laid, and when Valentin arrived in 2014, it was only natural that he converted the estate to organic and biodynamic farming.

With the certification in hand, Valentin continues to go even further than the requirements of the label, in the vineyard and especially in the cellar where all the wines are vinified naturally, without inputs and with the lowest possible doses of sulphur and only when necessary.

Very committed to current climatic issues, Valentin has been planting hybrid grape varieties for several years now, which are more resistant to spring frosts in particular, and is still experimenting in order to prepare for the uncertain future that hangs over viticulture as we know it today...