Jean-Michel Stephan is a free spirit, truly independent. His marvellous Côte-Rôtie wines "are made the old-fashioned way", in the Jules Chauvet style, as he claims. Portrait.
As a good son of an arborist, Jean-Michel Stéphan was passionate about vines from a very young age. At the age of 14, he even participated in the planting of a hectare of vines with his father. Passionate, he couldn't see himself doing anything else and went to study at the Belleville agricultural high school in Beaujolais. With his diploma in hand, Jean-Michel continued his apprenticeship in the area with Jean-Paul Brun (Winery des Terres Dorées). His adventure began in 1991 on a Winery that he created from scratch in Tupin-Semons. To get off to a good start, only 3 hectares were taken over on a lease basis before Winery was increased to 4.5 hectares for good. The largest parcel is called "Coteau de Bassenon" (called "Bas de Semons" at the time) with 1.5 hectares. It is a sloping, terraced hillside, cut into granite and gneiss. The upper part was planted in 1987 and the lower part, of barely 1 ha, was planted in 1896. The other plots are located on the so-called "Coteaux de Tupin" dating from the 1980s and constitute the cuvée of the same name. Les Bercheries" is a very small parcel of 0.30 ha in Verenay which gives the regular Côte-Rôtie cuvée.
The work on all these plots is intense, especially as he refrains from using any chemicals in the soil and vines. This means ploughing with a horse (in the lower parts), winch, pickaxe to weed and compost. The approach is obviously very natural but Jean-Michel Stéphan does not need to be certified as an organic farmer, as he does not find it demanding enough.
From the point of view of Grape varieties, the Winery is composed of 30% Serine (original variety of Syrah), 60% cloned Syrah and 10% Viognier.
In vinification, the fermentations are in an anaerobic environment (whole bunches saturated in CO2, for finer aromas). SO2 is naturally banned, as are fining and filtration. From the vine to the bottle, the work is done without oxygen with, as a consequence, a little reduction at the opening. A good decanting is necessary to optimise all the subtlety, finesse and freshness of these vintages, and above all the rare minerality of these competitive Côte-Rôtie wines! 
