Yves Cuilleron Syrah Rose Sybel

The Man... Yves Cuilleron took over his family's small estate at 26 years old, when his uncle retired, after taking it over from his own father and running it for 27 years. Yves purchased his 8-acre sliver of vines set at the northern extreme of the Rhone, an area that barely receives enough radiant heat over the course of a year to ripen the region’s prized varietals. Cuilleron must be driven: he expanded his property from 3.5 to 46 hectares in 20 years, and found time to partner with two other great names in northern Rhone viticulture (Pierre Gaillard and François Villard) to create a separate high-quality negociant house. Their collective interests include reclaiming a "lost" vineyard in the upper extreme of their home region and redefining one of the Languedoc’s great terroirs, in Faugeres. Cuilleron is a scholar of wine and his homeland; he believes techniques like leaf pulling and the use of new oak have historical antecedents in his region dating back over a century and are not modern preoccupations as is commonly asserted.

The Land... Vineyards here are steep. The topography demands farmers perform most labor by hand, a happy example of geography creating the necessity to do things correctly in the vineyard. And for the area of the northern Rhone surrounding Cuilleron’s domaine, perhaps the 1800’s were better times. Over the course of the 20th century the great AOCs of this area were nearly relegated to historical footnote status, names that wine lovers knew but never had the opportunity to taste. As prices for local wines rise, the situation is changing again and this time for the better, but for most of the last century the lure of an easier suburban life in Lyon or Vienne led much of the population from these fields, and landowners that remained often sold large parcels in the area to developers for vacation homes. The famously steep terraces that line the Rhone fell into disrepair, and often disappeared back into the bramble. So the return of Yves Cuilleron to resuscitate his uncle’s farm is not only significant for a single individual or domaine. His efforts to return the region’s wines to global prominence will save the area’s vineyards from fading back into the hills and help to breathe life back into Condrieu, Cote Rotie and other corners of the northern Rhone. Cuilleron is one of a scant handful of growers who have allowed for a modern flowering of quality viticulture in an ancient, important land

The British Perspective... "A five-minute drive away from the river up the winding roads into the hills above the northern Rhone valley will bring one into an entirely different land. This is a countryside of meadows and pastures full of herds of cattle, walnut trees and orchards of peaches, apricots and cherries; of small hamlets apparently deserted except for the odd tethered goat and free-range chicken; a pre-industrial countryside, a land of private smallholdings, tranquility and agricultural plenty." Hugh Johnson.