Patrick Bouju & Justine Loiseau – Domaine La Bohème
St Georges sur Allier - Auvergne
Patrick Bouju is perhaps the reason we import wine.
Well one of them anyway.
We met Patrick in 2009 whilst searching for wine in the Auvergne, and it was thanks to him that we went to our first natural wine fair in Chateldon where we met several of the producers we work with today. Now there are hundreds of these events, but back then there were few, and it opened our eyes to not only a new kind of wine but also a new way of drinking wine; one without pretension, perhaps a little more hedonistic, and definitely more fun.
Now, over ten years later, Patrick and his partner Justine still make wine with grapes they grow on the volcanic slopes around the Puy de Dome, but also a fair amount with grapes from across France; the Alsace, Savoie, Beaujolais, Languedoc and even Greece. Somehow the wines are always vivid and alive and never seem to hit an off note.
Patrick's energy and enthusiasm, that roused us into changing the way we thought about wine, is channelled directly into the wine he makes as well.
