Ratafia - Le Muid Montsaugeonnais

In Haute-Marne, Dominique and Isabelle Bernard's Le Muid Montsaugeonnais is a certified organic winegrowing operation covering almost 14ha. The estate's terroirs are spread across Vaux-sous-Aubigny, Montsaugeon, Rivières-les-fosses and Chatoillenot.

We arrived in 1989, when the Montsaugeonnais vineyard was created, representing 9 hectares at the time. We both hail from the Beaune area of the Côte-d'Or. We had just graduated from viticulture school with a BTS in viticulture and oenology.

The people who decided to plant the vineyard had no viticultural knowledge whatsoever. Le Muid is a société anonyme, a joint-stock company, so it was people from the village and surrounding area who decided to revive the vineyards of the Haute-Marne region. It had totally disappeared since the phylloxera crisis, so they were looking for a couple of winegrowers.

We succeeded in the ^1st year. The Muid Montsaugeonnais, which today represents 14 hectares, is located within the perimeter of the National Forest Park.

We decided to join Esprit parc national because at the time, in 20220, we were in the process of converting to organic farming, so we had everything we needed to obtain it.

The Esprit parc nationalapproach is important for the tourists who come to visit us, to discover our cellars and taste our wines. We also sell to the trade, for gîtes and so on.

With 36 years' experience in the same vineyard, we know our plots exactly, we know our grape varieties exactly: chardonnay and auxerrois in white, pinot noir in red.

You also have to learn to live with the climate, which is increasingly difficult, so you have to adapt from one year to the next. I think that after 36 years we can be proud of our work, because it's a wine that was little known until now, and today we sell around 130,000 bottles a year, and we only do direct sales!

What's more, we win numerous awards when we present our wines at the Salon de l'Agriculture in Paris.