After great success in the Macon early on, Jean-Marie & Maine Guffens headed to an even lesser-known, more Southern region: the Luberon. More known for plush whites and beefy reds, Jean-Marie found the Chateau des Tourettes atop the highest point of the region, where it possessed its own microclimate (not to mention a limestone-rich slope), and re-planted the vineyards to his ideal. Today his daughter Marie runs the Chateau along with Jean-Marie's Burgundian winemaker Julien, and their range of wines extends from Chardonnay to Grenache to Cabernet Sauvignon, all incredibly unique and delicious versions of each.

Chateau des Tourettes (Maine et Jean-Marie Guffens-Heynen)

In the Luberon there is great excitement over Jean-Marie's wines, and we certainly can't get enough! At 420m altitude, Jean-Marie's vineyards at the Chateau des Tourettes have a cooler air to them, and plenty of energy. Among the 15 hectares of vines you'll find Chardonnay, Marsanne, Grenache, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon, expertly blended into wines that are both drinkable and age-worthy.

In the spirit of Jean-Marie's effervescent personality and press magic, the wines change regularly given a vintage's unique character. At times, a Blanc de Noirs will be made of Grenache, and the Rouge d'Une Nuit is often times almost rosé in hue despite having the depth and complexity of a Southern Rhone red.

The whites and reds are pressed carefully, usually only using the first pressing for the top "Tinus" line - an homage to his Grandfather's name - and resulting in wines of great elegance far outpacing any neighbor. Fermentation will occur in concrete or neutral oak, with only a tiny amount of new barrels in riper vintages for the Chardonnays.

"Family-run estate is verbiage we are all too familiar with. Usually it is family-run and one family member is making the wine while the other is working the books; the Pressanda family has a different definition of this. "

Ca' di Press

The vineyard and cellar work truly is a family affair and when speaking about family, this also importantly includes the place they are from, Perno. Alice & Cristina's grandparents have owned land in La Morra and Monforte since 1900 historically were a farming family that sold their grapes. Their father, Bruno, has spent most of his career overseeing and working their 7.5ha estate. He knows the land, the vineyards, and the grapes like the back of his hand. When Alice and Cristina decided to get involved in the family business, they didn't do so by fully taking over, but rather working together with their father, seeking to absorb the amounts of of knowledge he had that could be passed along, the depths of which couldn't just happen overnight.

Historically, the family sold off all of their grapes and kept a small amount for family and friends. Little by little, they have stopped selling their grapes and are now producing 3 of their 7.5ha, and trying to create in the bottle, what Perno is to them. 2018 was the first vintage they vinified at home and decided to sell themselves. The oldest vines in Perno were planted in 1960 - Nebbiolo, Dolcetto, and Barbera. Their production is slowly increasing along with the winery!

The history of Ca' di Press begins in the early 1900s, driven by love for nature, and also by necessity. An activity borne of a close bond with their territory and linked to the atmosphere of when wine was made for family, friends and for a few customers who often ended up becoming friends, too. This is where their name Cà di Press takes its inspiration from - in Piedmontese dialect this means “House of the Pressenda” - to them their wine is passion but above all it is home. Even though their family is by no means new to Perno, they are on a new journey together, one that fits seamlessly with Thatcher's Imports.

Viticulture and Vinification

All of their wines are fully de-stemmed. Right now, fermentation is happening in stainless steel tanks. The Langhe Nebbiolo and Barbera only see stainless steel. They believe the wine is a bit more sensitive to the wood and can easily become overpowered, and its best expression comes from absence of wood. They have recently started working with new foudres from two coopers, Garbellotto and Pauscha. To reduce the impact of the new wood, they chose Slavonian oak casks (25-30 HL). Right now, they are trying to be as hands-off as possible in the winery, letting the grapes take their own course, and simply overseeing the fermentation and aging and making decisions to best keep control and identity.

Stefano Occhetti bubbles with energy, a childlike excitement for what he has discovered: the potential within Roero. His Nebbiolo sing with a similar energy, effusively aromatic and as delicate as they are intense. Stefano's early success infuses more dedication to allowing "Roero" to appear in place of "Langhe" for his labels, as he feels his vineyards carry a note distinct to the region which he calls home, and from which he has quickly created its leading wines.

Stefano Occhetti

To make wine is not a job, per se - you can see it as a passion, a mission, a way of life. Stefano Occhetti, however, views it as a story: “Telling the story, it’s almost a game…but a serious game, to tell the story behind it. Every year I write a new chapter.”

Stefano, a former civil engineer, admits that he started at zero when he started to spend more time in his grandfather’s vineyards in Roero. Though he grew up in the village, vineyards were more of a playground, but as an adult he started to notice how his family and his neighbors would work tirelessly in the vines. “My father was a builder, so the vineyard was never a focus - I was a drinker of wine, so I had an idea; but when I returned to my grandfather’s vineyard, I saw I knew nothing. And that was exciting!”

Quickly becoming entangled in the vines, he spent 3 months in the vineyard and decided never to look back; he quit his job, while his wife kept hers to support them. Stefano’s first vintage of his own label was 2019; he worked one hectare and made around 4000 bottles, largely by himself with some help from his wife. His uncle served as a helping hand, teaching Stefano how to prune and hone his eye in the vineyard, and with his friend’s help in the winery the first vintage was an exciting beginning. “I felt quite good in the winery if I made vinegar,” Stefano jokes, “But the objective was to make wine.” He emphasizes that last word, as he had fallen back in with an old friend who had taken up work as an oenologist, and together they drank many wines of their neighbors and surrounding regions to learn and develop a reference point for Stefano to start at. He admits he “was almost a stalker of [his friend] for a year, but he accepted it!” They made a good pair, as they shared an ideal: to make wine without dogma, and to make it territorial; local.

Looking at his native Roero, Stefano has a very clear view now of what he wishes to achieve, and what Roero brings: “Roero is freshness, but with structure. Maybe it is more Valtellina than Barbaresco.” He is battling the law to allow for a wine to be called “Roero Nebbiolo” rather than “Langhe Nebbiolo,” for that very reason - he feels, as we do in tasting his wines that the expression is exquisite and very unique to the region. Not to mention, many equate Roero with Arneis, the local white grape that for most is not held in high regard (outside of a few stellar producers). “Eight hundred hectares all around of each Nebbiolo and Arneis, but for me the focus is Nebbiolo; I make some Arneis, but it is not my focus - it does not keep the ‘Roero’ the way Nebbiolo does, and that is my objective: to keep the Roero, to feel it.”

Viticulture & Vinification

By 2022 the Occhetti winery was in full tilt, his wife quit her work to join Stefano full time, forming a true family winery; “A small team,” Stefano laughs. “Maybe in 2024 we will have a bigger team - one additional hand!” They together farmed 2 hectares, with another full hectare coming on line in 2025. 0.8 of the hectares are within Occhetti, which has been in the family for 80+ years; another full hectare of 70+ year-old vines are in Sanche which is 100 meters from their small house. Across all vineyards the vine age averages 40-50 years. With the old vines, Stefano admits he must continue to learn to be “More respectful, more caring for what I have. I’m not biodynamic, but, you could say I am BD-curious! I just hope to improve every day.”

Occhetti is smooth, full of limestone. Sanche is super sandy and steep, to the point that it can not be worked by tractor. This works out, as the rows are only 1 meter apart, the vines tunneling deep into sedimentary soils chock-full of fossils. Cover crops are planted throughout Occhetti but incredibly hard in the sands of Sanche, which he calls “the Rive Gauche of Roero.”

In the winery, all fermentations occur naturally in concrete botti; for the Sanche only, the cap is submerged, as the tannins are lighter and softer given the sandy soils. After moving to large oak barrels, Occhetti will age longer than Sanche, 32 months to 20 for Sanche. The Langhe Nebbiolo was originally aged 20 months, but Stefano has shortened the aging to 16 months, desiring even more freshness.

There’s a gorgeous natural complexity to what’s inside Stefano’s bottles. “When I say I look for complexity, this does not mean just structure or body; it means range of aroma as well - in Roero you can find a wine more complex than others, but maybe not so much of what we call structure.”

We’re introducing the wines of only his third chapter within the story, but Stefano’s a quick learner, and through his own experimentation has started to truly hone his vision for what he wants to represent with his wines, each bottle with that year’s story of the wine written right there for us to read.