DOMAINE TURENNE

The road travelled over the last 30 years makes Philippe Benezet of Domaine Turrene proud. Phillipe has now found the right formula: healthy, organic grapes, indigenous yeasts, almost no sulphur and, above all, wines that express themselves better! Philippe grew up in Sedan, but has always felt like a child of the South. His parents, originally from the South of France, having landed in the Ardennes where they ran a chocolate factory. At the end of his adolescence, in 1983, young Philippe chose to train in viticulture and ended up in Hyères. Phillipes mother inherited a vineyard in the 1960s in Cuers en Provence, between Toulon and Brignoles. The family had sold the grapes to the cooperative up until 1994, when Finally Phillipe was free of the contract with the co-op and could begin to make his own wine. The first vintages were fairly classic, but he soon discovered natural wine and became passionate about these vinification methods. Not a small matter either - he realized that he had to work harder and be more vigilant with his 20 hectares and his terroir. The fear sometimes of losing control over his wine is there, but Philippe Benezet holds on and continues forward with the idea of introducing minimal amounts of sulphur to his wines. The sorting of the grapes has become more and more rigorous and in the beginning of the 2000s, he reached a new stage, the official conversion of the entire winery to organic agriculture.