Rouge Fruit 2024

When, in the early 1990s, architect Anne-Marie Lavaysse decided to abandon her Parisian routine and head to the south of France to start a small agricultural project, she was far from imagining that she would end up becoming an icon of natural wine in France.

Lavaysse settled in Gimios, a small village near Saint-Jean-de-Minervois, 30 km from the Mediterranean Sea as the crow flies, at an altitude of around 320 meters. This is how the now iconic “Le Petit Gimios” was born in 1996, when Lavaysse managed to obtain a 0.75 hectare plot of muscat vines, dating back to 1910, which would gradually grow to 2.5 hectares. In 1999, one of her sons, Pierre, started working part-time with his mother, before going full-time in 2007. In 2008, the Lavaysse bought a 1-hectare plot, also planted in 1910, with a myriad of indigenous grape varieties - the fruit from this vineyard gives rise to the “Ruige Fruit” wine. In 2013, they bought another plot, this time of 0.75 hectares, dating back to 1860, also with a panoply of local grape varieties, with which they make “Rouge de Causse”.

Today, the estate has 5 hectares of vineyards, which have never been subjected to any phytosanitary products, and maintains the guiding principles of polyculture, biodynamism and, above all, of attentively and dedicatedly listening to nature's needs. In this way, fruit trees, wild animals, medicinal herbs, vines, aromatic herbs, ducks, geese, vegetables and cows coexist in harmony. Human intervention, when necessary, is done through infusions of wild herbs that grow on the property.

No mechanization is used to work the vineyards, and the soil is not ploughed. Winemaking is minimalist, the grapes are destemmed, fermentation takes place thanks to the grapes' own yeasts, skin maceration lasts around ten days and the material used is preferably stainless steel. Sulphur dioxide is never used.