Stéphane Cyran
Mont-le-Vignoble, Lorraine

Based in the northern French region of Lorraine, Stéphane works a miniscule 1.5ha of vines close to his family home and cellar. Despite being sandwiched between Alsace and Champagne, Stéphane’s home region has little celebrated wine tradition, a fact he is fighting to change. Now, with temperatures increasing across France, this once unheralded area is now becoming a much desired environment for viticulture.

Whether in the vineyard or cellar, Stéphane shows the utmost care and respect to land and grape — his Pinot Noir and Gamay vines are all planted on clay-rich soils, with the soil worked gently by hand or horse depending on the gradient of the slope. In the cellar most macerations are done in whole bunches whether of white or red varieties, and no additions of any kind are made at any point in the vinification or at bottling. 

In addition to harvesting from his own vines, over the last couple of years Stéphane has reached out to nearby friends in Lorraine and Alsace to purchase fruit for his négociant line, Le Deuxième Soufflée. This secondary output has provided a chance to be experimental with different varieties and methods and each year goes from strength to strength.