Meet the winemaker: Domaine de la Bohème

Domaine La Boheme is a winery in Saint-Georges-sur-Allier, in France's Auvergne region. It's run by legendary natural winemaker Patrick Bouju and partner Justine Loiseau, who manage 9 hectares and buy grapes from other growers to make their wine.

We had the chance to speak with Patrick and Justine about their work. We hope you enjoy reading our conversation.

Patrick, can you tell me about your background in chemistry and the military, and how you came to be a winemaker?

Patrick: I didn't start making wine until 1997 - I had studied organic chemistry in Clermont-Ferrand and didn't want to be a winemaker. It wasn't a passion at first. While I was studying, it was obligatory for all men to serve in the French military. Because of this, I had to go to Burgundy from 1995 to 1996. While I was there, I met a lot of winemakers and learned how to make chemical wine - very few people were making natural wine there at the time. But then I met Dominique Derain, who was working in this way. So I took what I had learned with me to Auvergne. I made a lot of vinegar in the beginning, but it was all a learning experience. I learned from makers in Auvergne and Beaujolais, but it wasn't like it is now - there weren't a lot of people you could learn from. People didn't want to buy natural wine either. The year I made my first cuvée, I couldn't live off the income, so I worked both in the vineyard and also for IBM. Then in 2004, I met some some Japanese people who started to import my wine over there. This was the first step to being able to make a living from wine.

And how about yourself Justine - what's your background and what was your entry point to wine?

Justine: I studied communications in Paris, where I grew up. My course was half school and half practical, so I worked three days a week. During the evenings, I worked in restaurants with my aunt in a very posh area of the city. I started to realise I didn't want to work in communications, but in restaurants. I started learning about classic wine, in classic restaurants. In 2012, my friend Jane Drotter opened a restaurant, Yard, and she introduced me to natural wine - along with Fleur Godart and Clovis Ochin. We started organising tastings at the restaurant and that's how I met Patrick. We've known each other for 10 years now and, at the beginning, I travelled back and forth between Paris and Auvergne. I visited a lot but was scared to move to the countryside because I had grown up in Paris and was used to that way of life. Then, I lost my job and my apartment, so I made the decision to go to Auvergne. I found it really interesting, hard of course - you make a lot of mistakes early on - but you get to be creative and now, we get to do it together. We are a good team.

Patrick, what stage were you at with the winery when Justine joined you?

Patrick: When I started making wine, I worked alone and made only a few bottles. I didn't want to grow too much - 3-4 hectares initially - because it would be too much to manage by myself. Later, I got an employee who helped me. Then I started to buy grapes because we had some issues in the vineyard which meant we lost a lot of grapes. When Justine came to live here, it was an opportunity to grow more grapes, produce more wine and develop. We are a good team - we work a lot like a lab. We have a lot of projects and Justine helps me realise my dreams. The life of a winemaker isn't just to grow grapes and make wine, you also have a lot of administration and logistics, and Justine manages this side of things. We come up with all of our ideas together.

What would you say has most influenced your approach to growing and producing? 

Patrick: For me, I have a lot of allergies, so I can't drink with with sulphites. That's why it was really important to me to be able to make a wine that's completely natural. As I said, I didn't want to be a winemaker at first, but because I was drinking a lot of natural wine, I was heavily influenced by makers such as Gilles Azzoni, Claude Courtois, Domaine du Peyra, Guy Breton and Jean Maupertuis. And we're like family now. We always talk about wine.

Justine: My wine education originally came from my family, who had very classical tastes. My grandpa always drank white wine from Burgundy and red wine from Bordeaux. In 2012, when I met Clovis Ochin, he made me taste Jean-Yves Péron's Vers La Maison Rouge from Savoie and it blew my mind. I saw that you could have light wines with a lot of complexity, and it opened my mind to what's possible.

Can you tell me about Auvergne and the grapes, climate and traditions that define the region? 

Patrick: At the beginning, Auvergne was not very famous. There's a mountain so the vineyard sits at 500m altitude. There's a lot of volcanic characteristics - a lot of basalt and limestone with volcanic influence in the soil. It's a very unique biodynamic terroir. The climate is very fresh, giving good acidity to the wine. The main variety you find here is Gamay d’Auvergne. For me it’s one of the best Gamays, as it has a more spicy flavour and is more rustic than Gamay Beaujolais. There's also a lot of old vineyards. People having been making wine for their own consumption for a long time, so there's a lot of vines over 100 years old. It's a very unique experience to work with these grapes. 

What grapes do you grow and how many hectares do you work with now?

Patrick: Now, we have 9 hectares - 2 of Chardonnay, 2.5 of Pinot Noir and the rest is all Gamay d'Auvergne. 

What’s next for the Domaine?

Patrick: What we’re interested in now is planting new vines - of Gamay d'Auvergne, Pinot Noir and some other grapes, such as Sauvignon - and building a new cellar. We also want to develop the vineyards we buy from and find some good, different grapes. Why not in Burgundy, for example? Why not try vilifying different varieties?

Visit Domaine de la Bohème's RAW WINE profile to learn more about the winery.