Le Jardin, 2011

Located in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence – a small town famous for having been depicted by painter Vincent Van Gogh – North of the Alpilles mountains, Domaine Milan was created in 1956 by Robert Milan and later taken over by Henri, his son, in 1986. As soon as he started, Henri Milan had a great deal of ambition for the domaine. He had always been passionate about wines: he planted his very first vine at the age of 8 years old! Besides, he wanted to make wines in total respect with nature. Henri had the intuition his soil was made of great variety of mineral patches, which was confirmed by Mr. Claude Bourguignon, a famous soil microbiologist. That was confirmed by an analysis done on the estate in April 1996 which shed light on the potential of the “Tuilière Vieille” to produce white wines similar to the ones in Chablis, Burgundy. The analyses also showed the capacity of the “Clos Milan” to produce beautiful red wines thanks to the important quantity of calcium in its basement. Surprisingly enough, this property’s basement still possesses common points with that of Chateau Rayas, a famous property in Chateauneuf du Pape. A meeting in 1996 with Claude Courtois from Domaine Les Cailloux du Paradis also made Henri realize he had to run the vineyards according to biodynamic principles. After several years of work, in 2000, Domaine Milan finally produced its very first wine without sulfites. Henri, along with Sébastien and Dominique, managed to revive the soil. Therefore, it seems today the wine is expressing its gratitude. From the vines to the bottle, they take great care to produce one of the finest wines in Provence. The three of them were recently joined by Henri’s children, Emmanuelle and Theophile, who continue the hard work their father intiated 30 years ago. In the vineyard, after experiencing chemical culture, we can now easily measure the differences that exist between former, outdated, traditional methods and the organic culture, not only through the evolution of some soils of the property, but also through the generala sanitary state of the vines, which had a formidable impact on the quality of the wines. So, even though Henri Milan’s father always focused on respecting traditional means of cultivating the land, his son replaced the use of chemicals products with some high quality compost in order to give the wine its most noble dimension.