Seeing Red in Provence
On a stunning mountainscape, a father and son aim higher than rose
Among Provence winemakers, Henning and Sylvain Hoesch are close to being heretics.
The father and son have made wine for a combined 40 years at Domaine Richeaume on the flanks of Montagne Sainte-Victoire, just east of Aix-en-Provence. The gorgeous 160-acre estate, drenched in sunlight reflected off the cliffs of Sainte-Victoire, is a landscape right off a Cezanne canvas, with 70 acres of organic red-soil vineyards, olive and almond groves, grain fields and a flock of 100 sheep.
The Hoesches are contrarians. They shun the local Côtes de Provence Ste. Victoire appellation (created in 2005), cultivate outsider varieties such as Cabernet and Merlot, and even use a touch of American oak in aging wine.
And here's the worst of it: They don't care much for rose, the dominant and booming wine synonymous with Provence.
"Personally, I would prefer not to make rose at all," explained Sylvain, 44, a lanky, blue-eyed winemaker who bottles pink wine, in minuscule amounts, only because some customers demand it.
"Rose is a beverage—a cliche wine," he said recently on a break from preparations for the September harvest. "There is not much creativity in it."
Since 1997, when he took over winemaking, Sylvain has focused on red wines from low-yielding vineyards and, to a lesser degree, whites. Richeaume's reds are particularly prized in his father's native Germany and have been served at the French presidential palace in Paris under several administrations.
Sylvain is far from satisfied. He believes Richeaume and its iron-rich clay and limestone soils are capable of ever finer ageworthy wines. "For me, it's interesting to make wines that can last 20 to 30 years," he said. "Every year we try to go further."
When Sylvain's father, Henning, arrived here in 1972, he was a history professor specializing in canon law at the university in Aix. Looking for a family house, he instead found something close to a pastoral paradise.
The elder Hoesch, now 74, quit academia to plant vineyards with local varieties along with those from his favorite Bordeaux and Rhône reds. He learned winemaking from local vignerons and, in 1978, built gravity-flow cellars into the hillside.
Sylvain studied law, then viticulture. He found inspiration on a 1996 internship in California with winemaker Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards. "That was really where I learned a respect of terroir—the idea of making wine that is recognized as coming from a single vineyard," Sylvain said.
Richeaume's reds are fermented with native yeasts and aged in a mixture of new and used barriques. Since 2012, Sylvain and young Spanish enologist Marco Mirones have lengthened barrel aging from a minimum 14 months to up to two years, an effort to temper oaky flavors and increase aging potential.
At their best, Richeaume's reds hit a sweet spot that balances juicy ripeness with fresh acidity and full body with drinkability. Their basic red, Cuvee Tradition, is an atypical blend of Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, Carignan and Cinsault. Richeaume makes up to five other reds: three varietals, the Cabernet-Syrah Cuvee Columelle and a deep and dark single-vineyard Syrah called Les Terrasses.
In 2008, Richeaume withdrew entirely from the Côtes de Provence appellation, which controls blending percentages, forbids single-variety red wines and excludes Merlot. From 2012 on, all Richeaume wines use the loose regional catch-all Vin Mediterranee label, allowing for a freer hand in their winemaking.
"In Provence, almost everything can be grown except Sangiovese, Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir," Sylvain explained. "All the other grapes can work very well here. Yet some are forbidden."
"We don't want the state telling us what to do," he added. "It's important for me to have the freedom to make the best wine we can."