Domaine Olivier Pithon
Domaine Olivier Pithon
【Spellbound by the land — a grower like no other, and truly a grand vin du Sud】
Olivier Pithon comes from Anjou in the Loire Valley, and grew up in a family of winegrowers.
He set his heart on making wine at the age of fourteen, first helping his grandfather at home in Anjou and then his brother Jo Pithon, already a celebrated name, in the Coteaux du Layon. Most of his teenage years were spent working in the vines and the cellar. At eighteen he left the Loire for Bordeaux to study viticulture, and a world of wine utterly unlike the one he knew opened up before him.
After several stints in Jurançon and Bordeaux he refined his savoir-faire under the gifted winemaker Stéphane Derenoncourt, a man steeped in terroir who marked him profoundly: "precision, love of the work, balance, lightness — and the conviction that wine should be made with delicacy and should, above all, bring pleasure." From him Olivier learned what no school had taught him: the value of working in harmony with nature, and the importance of letting land and grape variety speak for themselves.
In time the desire to make his own wine took hold, and he set out to find a place worthy of his passion for wine and terroir. In 2000 he came to the small village of Calce, and there he met Gérard Gauby. One look at the altitude, the wind that never stops blowing and the intricate patchwork of soils convinced him that wines of delicacy and refinement could be made here. Spellbound by the land, Olivier bought 8.5 hectares of old vines. He farmed organically from the very first day, gained organic certification in 2002 and biodynamic certification in 2010.
