Domaine Longère
Jean-Luc Longère is the sixth-generation custodian of his family’s small hillside estate. A passionate vigneron and winemaker, his energy goes into producing quality wines while respecting environment and family traditions. The winery pays homage to histories from both sides of Jean-Luc’s family with his viticultural heritage coming from his mother’s side, and name ‘Longère’ to honour his father’s family profession of weaving, which translates to ‘piece of fabric’.
Choosing to keep the estate small, at five hectares of vines, he sees himself as a wine artisan and is the first of the generations to adapt the business to direct consumer sales.
History
Jean-Luc was born and raised in Vaux-en-Beaujoulais, a village in southern Beaujolais. The tradition of being a vintner has been handed down through six generations on Jean-Luc’s mother’s side. Starting his journey within the family business in 1988, he took over from his aunt, pivoting the business to sell wines directly to consumers, the first of the generations to do so. The core of his production is Beaujolais-Village but he also makes a small amount of Chardonnay and Rosé.
The vines are located in the communes of Le Perréon and Vaux-en-Beaujolais “Clochemerle”, near Mont Brouilly. Producing around 30,000 bottles per year, vineyards are grown on hillsides with a south, south-east exposure.
Viticulture & Winemaking
In The Vineyard
The Domain has been a leader in biodiversity farming since 1987, and was among the first to be certified by Terra Vitis, Jean-Luc strives to honour his family’s heritage by continuing a sustainable approach to viticulture, maintaining a natural balance of environmental diversity for the plants and animals of the area. There is limited human intervention practised within the vineyard to ensure the vines and ecosystem are in harmony with each other. The grapes and grape quality as a result are better and he prefers to pick earlier as he does not want the Gamay too ripe.
Vines are planted at around 450m above sea level, rolling across sloping foothills over mountains rich in granitic soils with deposits of blue stone.
When taking over from his aunt in 1988, Jean-Luc spent time retraining the vines to “gobelet”: pruning reserved for Beaujolais-Villages and Crus du Beaujolais. This included the Chardonnay vines, quite unusual for this variety! All the grapes are hand-harvested by a crew of villagers, during quite a celebrated event each yet.
In The Winery
As with Jean-Luc’s viticultural philosophy, the approach in the winery is quite holistic and hands-off. All grapes are hand-harvested and sorted before vinification. The Longère Gamay, “Poivre et Sel” translates to Pepper & Salt and is made to be a gastronomic wine, although in our opinion wonderful on its own too. It is whole-bunch vinified and aged in stainless steel.
The Chardonnay, Nos Deux Elles, is a nod “full of love” to the two daughters, Lisa and Laura, of Jean Luc Longère. “They who grew up in the middle of the rows of vines know the price of work.” It is whole-bunch pressed, fermented at a low temperature then kept on fine lees until spring.
All the wines are made and bottled at the property.