Interview with the House of Mourier Vins, Xavier Mourier

SEPTEMBER 2020

Heir of a house whose origin dates back to the end of the 19th century, the winegrower of Chavanay has also made a name for himself in the wine world.
The landscape is extraordinary: we are at an altitude of over 300 meters on the foothills of the Pilat, and from this natural lookout overlooking the Rhone Valley, we have a breathtaking view of the Alps and the Vercors massif. We are in a tip of the Loire department, about thirty kilometers south of Lyon and a stone's throw from the Ardèche. It is there, near the village of Maclas, in the hamlet of Peyssonneau to be precise, that in the early 2000s the winegrower Xavier Mourier chose to set up as a young farmer by acquiring a farm that had been run until then in mixed farming and which he chose to devote solely to the vine: the Domaine la Croix de Garde, one of the two sites of the Xavier Mourier company, the second being located in Chavanay, below in the Rhone Valley.

For the Mourier family history is much older: "It all began in 1889 with my grandfather, Stanislas, who started trading.  He bought wine mainly in the southern Rhône Valley - the Côtes-du-Rhône d'en bas, as they used to say at the time - which he sold on the Rhône-Alpes region after bottling it". The biggest part of the clientele? The bistros of Saint-Etienne with their miners... Then, in chronological order, there was Prosper in 1903 who built an ultra-modern cellar for the time, Michel in 1925 who was going to team up with a family in Lirac to produce the Lou Gaëlou wines, Joannes in 1960 who, on the lookout for new discoveries, was going to create a partnership with a Vaucluse estate, the Galets Pourpres. And finally, Michel, Xavier's father, who, while carrying on his trading activities, decided to buy his first plots of land in 1980, focusing on the Saint-Joseph appellation. This was the birth of the Domaine de Pierre Blanche in which the young Xavier was to play an active role.

While studying viti-œno at the Bel Air high school in Belleville in the Beaujolais region, he began planting his first vines, the first in 1990 in Saint-Joseph, in the commune of Malleval. "I think it's 7,000 meters. One of our biggest plots". Then the planting continued, always with the same pattern: fallow land where it was often necessary to pull out the old vines, dig up the stakes, cut down the trees sometimes and also to raise the dry stone walls that hold the small terraces on which the vines are planted ... on slopes with more than 40% slope! A titanic work... " We did a little bit each year, smaller areas. Often on weekends with the help of friends from my class at school who came to help me". At the time and at the end of his studies, he was employed by Pierre Gaillard, a renowned winemaker and craftsman. And took advantage of his free time to expand his vineyard: a little more than one hectare at the beginning, 15 today. In Saint-Joseph for a large part, but also in Condrieu and Côte Rôtie. Without forgetting the vines planted on the side of the hamlet of Peyssonneau classified they in appellation IGP Collines rhodaniennes.

At the same time, Xavier Mourier took over the wine merchant and breeder activity inherited from his father Michel in 2010. But unlike him, who liked to play the role of sales representative, he chose to delegate the marketing activity to devote himself solely to the vineyard and the maturing of the wines. The farm, I shaped it the way I wanted it to be," he says. "The wine merchant business is just a continuity. My parents and grandparents worked with winegrowing families, I continue with the same ones. A loyalty that has been proven over 4 generations, which partly compensates for the ups and downs of the wine merchant's profession.

Jean Calabrese

LOCATIONS
Mourier Vins, 53 RN 1086 at Chavanay
CEO - Purchasing Director: Xavier Mourier
Sales Director - Public Relations: Patrick Tetart

Wines marketed: Côte Rôtie, Condrieu, Saint Joseph, Crozes Hermitage, Hermitage, Cornas, Saint-Péray, Côtes du Rhône, Côtes du Rhône Villages Sablet, Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Beaumes-de-Venise, Lirac, Tavel, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Rasteau + IGP Collines Rhodaniennes.
Tel : 04 74 87 04 07 / contact@domainemourier.fr