Bras/Brue-Auriac, Var (Provence)
Gwennaëlle Le Bars started about 3 years ago her own domaine in this part of inner Provence known as La Provence Verte, between the two cute villages of Bras (pictured on right) and Brue-Auriac. I met Gwennaëlle a few years ago at Les Pénitentes [scroll to third pic] as she was working for Chablis vigneron Thomas Pico. The large warehouse in a corner of which
where she is setting up her chai is located in a
ranch-size property of 500 hectares (pretty large for France) which was previously raising 2000 sheep for meat, the new owners will tend the 2000 olive trees organicly and there are also Aurochs, an ancient breed of cattle being raised here. Gwennaëlle shares the building with two market gardeners, one of whom is pictured on the left.
Gwennaëlle's first wine experience was when she worked at the Domaine Les Terres Promises (Jean Christophe Comor) not far from here. She grew up in the port city of Toulon (Var), began to study in Toulon then in Paris in physics, worked in a lab as research engineer but in 2014 she decided to try other jobs closer to what she'd feel comfortable with, and one of these jobs was doing the harvest at Comor in 2017. By chance they also needed someone in the cellar and she was tasked to watch over the fermenters during the whole harvest and that was a great experience. Comor was also confident with her lab training (even if not in wine) meaning she had the skills to check the analysis data for the fermenting juice. She left in october after which she worked 3 months in Ma Cave Fleury in Paris, another great experience in this natural-wine bar that not only serves the Fleury Champagnes but a superb selection of still wines from around France, she tasted lots on nice wines there. Natural wines were a new experience for her, she was from a family where tasting/enjoying wine was revered, visting producers as well, but she discovered another dimension with natural wines.
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