We conducted wine tours for over 2 years in the Roussillon region and the one thing that struck us was that everyone was really very interested in the stories and the people behind the vineyards as well as the actual wine tasting aspect.
So once a month, I hope to bring you the story behind a vineyard in the Roussillon, because every vineyard has a story to tell..
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| Jon Hesford of Domaine Treloar |
Domaine
Treloar is a small family run vineyard of 12 hectares situated in the Aspres
region in the Roussillon. They have been making their highly acclaimed wine
here since 2006.
I chatted
to them recently:
Where are
you from originally?
Jon is from
Yorkshire. Shortly after university he moved to London and started a career as
a computer programmer. It was in 1998, working at an investment bank, where I met Rachel, from Levin, near Wellington in New Zealand. We met over lunch and a
nice bottle of Marlborough Sauvignon blanc in the Barbican Centre. We had both
just come out of unhappy relationships and found what we’d been missing. We got
married 6 months later, just before moving to New York to work.
What made
you decide to become a wine maker?
The love of
wine and Osama bin Laden. Our story is a bit different. We never dreamt of
owning a vineyard. We probably would never have done it without the catalyst of
Sept 11th. Living and working within 500m of the Twin Towers, seeing
both planes hit the building, losing colleagues and having our lives turned
upside down destroyed our illusion of safety and career security. We wanted to
be in control of our own destiny. It also made us realize that if there is
something you would rather be doing, you should go and do it straight away.
When did
you start making wine?
2002. I
volunteered at a English winery for a few months and then decided to go to New
Zealand to study oenology and viticulture at Lincoln University, near
Christchurch. The plan was to do a vintage after the course and return to Europe
but I was offered the job of assistant winemaker at Neudorf Vineyard in Nelson
and stayed there nearly 2 years. It was a great experience, making some of the
finest wines in the Southern Hemisphere but in the end we wanted to do our own
thing and we had decided to do it in the Languedoc-Roussillon because of the
price of vineyards and the high potential of the terroir.
Why did you
pick Trouillas?
I came on a
month’s recce of the Languedoc-Roussillon in 2005. Visiting wineries and
talking to people in the industry. I liked the style of the wines of Les
Aspres. I like the location in terms of accessibility and I also liked it that
there were no other new or foreign winemakers here. I wanted to be a pioneer,
not riding on a bandwagon. It has had its disadvantages. I find my neighbouring
vignerons a bit stuck in the past. A lot of critical and trade attention is
focused on villages like Calce and Maury where most of the new winemakers have
gone.
What is the
history of the cave you bought?
The cave
was built in the 18th century but the rear wall is the old fortified
wall of the village dating from the 12th C. It was a family estate
of 120ha, the biggest in Trouillas, which had been gradually run down and
sold-off by the brothers who inherited it and lived in Marseille. It still has
7 of the great oak foudres which used to hold 250hl wine each. Today we don’t harvest enough to fill one of
them.
What has
been your biggest challenge?
Trying to
do all the different jobs well. It’s hard to put the time into vineyards,
winemaking, sales, publicity, administration and tourism and excel in all of
them. I also underestimated the importance of trade contacts the general lack
of interest in Roussillon wines in countries like the UK and USA.
What wine
maker do you aspire to?
Dry River
in New Zealand was our original model. There are several producers in the
Roussillon that we respect but we don’t want to be them. A lot of people expect
us to want to expand and create a hugely popular wine brand but that is not our
vision. I believe that is more important to have your own goals and achieve
those than to try to be someone else.
How do you
get on with local French vignerons?
Generally
very well, better than I expected. I think they see us as being like them. Although
some of them, especially those with positions of influence within industry
organizations, can be stubborn and difficult, but I don’t think that is any
different from any other field.
Where do
you sell your wine?
Mainly in
Germany, the UK and locally but we have importers in Belgium, Holland and Canada
as well. It was always our aim to diversify sales and not have all our eggs in
one basket.
What wines
do you make, at what price and where are they available to buy?
I make 2
white wines, 6 different reds and a sweet Muscat. Everything is focused on
quality and creating wines with individual character. Having said that, our
goal was always to make wines that can be enjoyed, and afforded by, both wine
connoisseurs and casual drinkers alike.
They range
in price from 6€ to 17€ retail and can be bought from the winery or through our
website, which offers free delivery in France. http://www.domainetreloar.com/ordering.htm
I think this is unique as most wineries charge a courier fee of around
20-30€. We can also deliver wine to addresses in the UK and throughout Europe.
My retail stockists are on my website here http://www.domainetreloar.com/stockists.htm
Can people
visit the vineyard?
Another of
our aims was to provide visitors to the winery with an interesting and
enjoyable experience to help them appreciate wine, especially hand-crafted
wines like those we love. We’ve conducted educational vineyard and winery tours
from the start, even before we had any wine to sell! Now we also have a gite so
people can stay at the winery.
One
strength of coming from the outside is that we understand how the internet and
social media can be a better way of telling our story than the traditional
route of advertising and commercial agents. We’re one of the few wine producers
who communicate regularly and openly with our customers and the wine community.
That has the added benefit of giving us much more direct feedback. It protects
us from that common winemaker problem of “believing your own back label”.
Domaine Treloar
16 Traverse de Thuir
66300 TrouillasFrance
Tél : +33 (0)4 68 95 02 29
www.domainetreloar.com
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