Francois Villard
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After a career as a chef and sommelier, Francois Villard decided to exchange his knife and wine key for a pair of shears and overalls and set up shop in the Northern Rhone, producing his first few hundred bottles of Condrieu in 1992. Francois’ plots are split evenly between white and red, and he produces wine from a large swath of appellations in the Northern Rhone.
After a career as a chef and sommelier in Vienne and Grenoble, Francois Villard started making wine from scratch, producing just 400 bottles of Condrieu in 1991. Today, he’s a seasoned expert in the Northern Rhone, making wine from a staggering range of appellations in both red and white. A relationship with Yves Cuilleron helped Francois find a foothold and gain experience making wine in the Rhone Valley. In 1989, he planted 4 hectares of vines in the Northern Rhone and slowly built up his domaine from there.
Francois has steadily evolved his style in the decades he’s been making wine, embracing whole-cluster fermentation and dialing back new oak use. He has also become a leading champion for Northern Rhone whites, which make up a full half of his total production. To achieve his signature rich, texturally complex style, he favors maximum ripeness—often picking much later than his neighbors—and even welcoming some botrytis for specific bottlings.
Francois prefers optimizing ripeness, picking later than many of his neighbors, and vinifies in a mixture of foudres and smaller barrels. He produces four different Condrieu bottlings, as well as reds from almost all major Northern Rhone appellations, including St. Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage, Cote-Rotie, and Cornas. His focus has shifted over time to produce wines centered on elegance and balance rather than power and flash.
