Anne Buiatti

From co-op to farm

Anne Buiatti trained as an agricultural engineer. She started out in the world of Corsican wine co-operatives, in the shadow of 50,000-hectolitre tanks, and went on to work as an oenological consultant. Until the urge to make her own wines, from the gut and with conviction, took over.

For around fifteen years she lived in Calce, in the Roussillon, where she learned the craft. In 2016 she settled with her partner Grégoire in Saint-Morillon, half an hour south of Bordeaux in the Graves. Calce offered warmth and a certain comfort, but Bordeaux drew her in with its history and a culture steeped in wine. It was right there, among serious, conventional wines, that she wanted to be a winemaker. At the time, the artisanal approach only existed at the very margins, and that was exactly the challenge.

A second life for an old farm

Anne and Grégoire set their sights on old barns and stables dating from the 16th and 17th centuries, on a site once given over to cows. Grégoire shaped a setting worthy of the project; Anne built a rural vineyard with her own hands. Around the vines a mixed farm has grown up, with orchards, chickens, sheep and beehives, moving ever further into permaculture. Her dream: flowering land, sown with a thousand species.

Anne has no trouble calling herself a winemaker, an artisan and a farmer. She’s determined and full of conviction, but not combative. She doesn’t think she does the same job as someone running a hundred hectares, even biodynamically, and she openly questions production, profitability and the meaning of the profession. She dreams of a joyful club of peasant winegrowers and permaculture farmers, and sees a small group sharing her vision emerging in the Gironde.

Two terroirs, worlds apart

Alongside her parcels in the Graves, Anne farms three hectares at the Col de la Donna in Calce, of which just over one hectare is in production. Two terroirs that couldn’t be further apart. Calce means water shortages, low yields, no mechanisation and a wind that never stops. It brings plenty of headaches, but it also sharpens her craft.

Outside the lines

Anne turned her back on the AOP system as too confining. All her wines are Vin de France: a blank page that lets her sign her wines with her head held high. She sometimes regrets that this keeps her from helping Bordeaux and its appellations be read differently, but it opens the door to niche markets. Outside the Graves rulebook, she plants vines on single stakes and weaves leafy bridges between the rows to protect the vineyard against a warming climate.

Her scattered parcels don’t push her towards terroir wines but towards unexpected, explosive blends: Syrah from the south with Merlot or Cabernet from Bordeaux, and sometimes reds with whites. Each cuvée is meant to reflect one of her personalities. Where Bordeaux leans towards conformity and standardisation, she wants fireworks.

Everything by hand

No chemicals and no machines in the vineyard: pickaxe, sickle, shears and secateurs, farmed biodynamically. Anne makes her own herbal teas, compost and silica preparations. There’s no electricity in the cellar. Grapes are destemmed by hand and sorted in wicker baskets, crushed by foot, and ferment spontaneously on native yeasts. They then age for a long time in 750-litre terracotta amphorae or 300-litre barrels. No fining, no filtration, no sulphites. Even the bottles are waxed by hand: something only a small, artisanal house can do.

The cuvées

The range runs from silky, easy-drinking wines to deep ones, with juices along the way that really wake up the palate. L’Allumée comes in three colours: white, orange (Sauvignon and Sémillon) and red (Malbec and Sémillon with a touch of Cabernet). The orange shows a herbal nose with orange zest, a fleshy palate of anise, citrus and elegant bitterness, and a smooth richness: a food-friendly orange wine, mouthwatering and complex. La Bouffonne brings together Merlot from flint and Cabernet Sauvignon from clay, while Donna takes its name from her vineyard in Calce. Then there are Môme and Gazelle, and a few cuvées also come in magnum.

Wines with a farmer’s heart and a free spirit: Bordeaux like you’ve never tasted it.