Villa Minna Vineyard

The winery is located in the commune of Saint-Cannat (Département Bouches-du-Rhône) in the French wine growing region of Provence. It has been owned by the family since 1929. It was then that Alexandre Luc delivered the grapes to the local cooperative. The vineyard was however abandoned after his death. In 1987, it was reactivated by the grandson Jean-Paul Luc through replanting. After studying oenology, daughter Minna joined the company in 1998. The first wine was a country wine Bouches-du-Rhône in 1999 with only 2,900 bottles. The vineyards cover 15 hectares of vineyards on limestone soils and are located between Aix-en-Provence and Salon-de-Provence. They are planted with the red wine varieties Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvèdre(Monastrell), Caladoc and Marselan, and the white wine varieties Vermentino, Roussanne and Marsanne.

Organic viticulture is practised according to rules certified by ECOCERT since 2012. This includes, among other things, complete renunciation of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Wild animals are also tolerated in the vineyard. Through appropriate measures such as pruning and thinning out, there are extremely low yields with a maximum of 25 hl/ha. Through selective manual harvesting, only healthy and ripe grapes are processed. The red wines are fermented spontaneously in 20 to 50 hl stainless steel tanks with the vineyard's own yeasts and then undergo a long maceration to extract the colourings and tannins. After two years of maturation in wooden barrels with light filtration and minimal sulphurization, they are bottled for three years before being put on the market. The white wines mature for 12 months in steel tanks after spontaneous fermentation.