Château Sainte-Marie
In the rolling hills of Entre deux Mers, the area between the Garonne and the Dordogne rivers outside of Bordeaux, the Gilles Dupuch and his family run their 35 hectare family estate as a sideline business to his insurance brokerage. Because of his duel vocations, he has not fallen into the trap which many of their neighbors who produce white Bordeaux wines in the area have. That is rapid expansion, over- mechanization, and young vines sparsely planted. In fact, there are still a dozen heads of cattle on the property (which could be planted in AOC grapes), a final vestige of what the area was once like. That is grapes planted only on the finest hillsides, and the rest used for cattle grazing.
Dupuch has spent considerable energy, in his position as President of the Entre Deux Mers Appellation, trying to convince his colleagues that the future of the appellation will be found through denser vine planting, lower yields and natural vineyard management. To no avail. Thus, he is alone in this quest on the hills of his property which is the highest elevation in the appellation.
Their grapes are hand-picked (virtually unheard of in the area), and they come from vines over 35 years old. The rest is very simple. Cool fermentation, skin maceration, stainless steel aging, and very light fining and filtering. The vines that he plants are only derived from non-clonal, massal selection.
For the past few years, Dupuch's son Stephane has been gradually taking over the property. He now is completely in charge and is in the process of transitioning the viticulture over to organic and biodynamic farming. | 