We took two years to find the location for Shuette. My wife and I searched all over Europe for the perfect spot. Our search was never about a country, region, or style. We wanted an estate with a working, healthy organic and biodynamic vineyard and the space to enrich the surrounding environment through regenerative farming practices.
France is one of the few places where you can still find fantastic terroir paired with versatile, attached farmland. Usually, famous grape-growing areas have been completely consumed by industrial monoculture. We selected this vineyard because of its unique natural attributes, not for the country, the region, or traditional wine styles.
I enjoy classic Bordeaux and think it still has a place. But our mission is to ask: What would you make here if the AOC never existed? So, we focus on modern winemaking techniques, sustainability, and the way people actually want to enjoy wine today.
Shuette is located in Entre-Deux-Mers, Bordeaux, forming a single, continuous block that backs directly onto the Dordogne River. Its 40-year-old vines have always been organic and farmed by hand, something remarkably rare in Bordeaux. The wide, deep tidal river provides both fertile clay and mineral-rich schist soils, while driving significant diurnal temperature swings. In summer, morning river fog cools the vines, extending our growing season to preserve natural acidity and develop deeper aromatic maturity.
Today, we grow nine grape varieties across 5.5 hectares under vine (producing around 16,000 bottles per year) within a 12-hectare estate: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chenin Blanc, Souvignier Gris (PiWi), Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, and Sémillon.
At Shuette, we follow regenerative farming principles that combine organic viticulture with biodynamic practices, agroforestry, wildlife preservation, and biodiversity. For example, we’ve planted over 350 fruit trees throughout and around the vineyard, each paired with its own bird box and wild floral border to integrate true ecological diversity back into our land.
We never decide on a cuvée until our maturity tests begin in August. To me, you can’t know what a plot should become until you see the color, smell the aromas, and taste the raw juice. In this way, we adapt our winemaking to the fruit, rather than forcing the fruit into a pre-conceived box.
In general, we use only free-run juice for our wines, skipping mechanical pressing entirely. (The pressed juice, roughly 20% of the yield, is distilled into brandy for side projects like our Umeshu.) We use techniques like extended skin contact, controlled oxidation, lees aging, and flor to amplify the natural, fruit-forward profile of our wines.
This creates a lineup of lighter, brighter, fruit-forward wines that are highly unusual for the region. For instance, Solis is a lightly sparkling rosé made by destemming Merlot berries and letting the weight of the grapes press themselves. We rack the juice continuously over eight hours, allowing the must to filter naturally through the skins to pick up extra color and bright aromas of cranberry and raspberry. The must ferments spontaneously, undergoes full malolactic fermentation, and ages on the lees for seven months in stainless steel.
Our 2024 orange wine (a 50/50 blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon) was similarly destemmed and gravity-pressed. The skins macerated with the wine for a month, during which we performed daily pour-overs (rather than aggressive punch-downs) to gently extract color and aromatics without harsh tannins. Regular bâtonnage built texture, while a week of post-fermentation oxidation rounded out the fruit. It is currently aging under flor to develop deeper complexity.
In the cellar, we ferment and age our wines using a mix of 500L neutral oak barrels, concrete tanks, and stainless steel. We’ve always made natural wine, but since 2024 we have moved to a strict zero-zero approach: no added sulphites and zero filtration.
We launched our first cuvée in September last year and have been attending wine fairs since November, meeting countless consumers and trade buyers who are genuinely thrilled to see a project like ours in Bordeaux.
There are roughly 7,000 wineries in Bordeaux, and currently only about 53 produce any natural wine. Even then, most predominantly make traditional Bordeaux reds with reduced sulphites, perhaps aged in neutral vessels. While that’s a step in the right direction, it doesn't go far enough to showcase what Bordeaux terroir can achieve or respond to what modern wine drinkers want.
We often use the tagline "Not your grandad’s Bordeaux" to describe our style. Last year, we released a rosé pét-nat, a semi-carbonic Merlot, and an orange wine (among other) styles that are entirely atypical for the region, but delicious, modern, and exciting to drink.
People often ask what our neighbors think of us. The honest answer? I don’t know, and that’s fine. We are focused on what we believe in.
I hope Shuette proves that an unfettered, modern approach to winemaking and regenerative agriculture can be ecologically sustainable while producing vibrant wines that expand the region’s repertoire.
I’m excited to see new, young winemakers entering the region, taking advantage of lower land prices to start their journey. But far more needs to be done right now to support organic growers. I’ve spoken with too many farmers returning to conventional spraying or pulling up their vines altogether because the cost of farming organically is too high compared to the support they receive.
To support organic growers in our area, Shuette launched a négoce arm. Starting in 2025, we are purchasing grapes from outstanding organic farmers to produce 28,000 bottles of still and pét-nat wines under the Shuette umbrella, crafted with the exact same philosophy as our estate wines. Thanks to scale, we can offer these at an accessible price point, allowing more people to experience modern Bordeaux. We call this project Renegades, because that’s exactly what these organic growers are.
For this new wave of natural winemaking to thrive, we need buyers, sommeliers, and influencers to look past Bordeaux’s history and actively support the growers and producers forging its future.