PIERRE ANDREY - Lorraine

Florence Bouleaux and Pierre Andrey, based in Metz in the French Moselle, work in environmental management and medical equipment respectively. It was with their friends Michel Gahier and Alexandre Jouveaux that they approached viticulture and natural wines and their vocation took shape. From harvest to harvest, they acquire knowledge and experience until they produce their first vinified dame-jeanne, a Pinot Gris in 2014. The beginning of a rich adventure...
Pierre Andrey, a timeless character from Franche-Comté, divides his life between weeks in Luxembourg, where he works as an engineer specializing in medical equipment, and evenings and weekends in his "winery" in the heart of Metz.
Florence Bouleaux, his partner, originally from Strasbourg, works in waste treatment for the Metz area, and accompanies him from the beginning in this crazy dream.
It was above all their winemaker friends who introduced them to responsible viticulture and natural winemaking. As soon as they have time, the couple escapes to the vineyards, participating in numerous harvests, from Alsace to Beaujolais.
It all started in 2014, after the harvest at Bruno Schueller's, when they brought with them around fifty liters of Pinot Gris, in exchange for their work, which they put for transport in...a demijohn. After a few months in the garage under his house in Metz, the result was surprising and decisive in laying the foundations of their adventure.
Grapes harvested by friends in Alsace, Jura and Beaujolais, organic vines and grapes hand-picked by Florence and Pierre themselves, to guarantee a drastic selection. The harvest is brought back to Metz, first to the couple's garage and from 2020 to the newly installed "winery" in the center of Metz, just a few minutes from their home. To the lots of Gamay, Riesling, Gewurtz, Pinot Noir, Gris or Auxerrois brought back from the four corners of France, since 2015 a vineyard of just 0.07 hectares planted with Pinot Noir has been added, in the village of Vaux on the outskirts of Metz.
The cellar equipment is basic, a small vertical press, a few vats for transporting the wine and more than two hundred meticulously aligned and labeled demijohns. Pierre's "medical" precision can be seen in every detail. The vinifications are carried out in a natural way, without a gram of sulfur dioxide or any other contribution. Grapes and time, that's all!
Each cuvée is unique, each demijohn is bottled separately. One thousand bottles the first year, almost three thousand the second, the style is refined and precise year after year, just as the demand from wine merchants, restaurateurs and informed connoisseurs who rush to grab the few precious bottles.
Florence and Pierre's labels may seem quite complex at first glance, but they are full of scientifically precise information for those who can decipher them!
Three types of cuvée: Vinae Florentes, from rebeches or second press, more immediate, soft and fruity wines; Verba Pampinea, pure expression of the terroir, a hymn of minerality and tension, deeper and more complex wines. From the 2019 harvest, a third line, Via Concordiae, for terroir blends.
17 (dix-sept) PN20djl39 can be read on the label of a 2020 Pinot Noir chosen at random. First of all, the number of cuvées, 17, which are found year after year, linked to a terroir, a vineyard. Then the indication of the grape variety, PN for Pinot Noir, GA for Gamay... follows the vintage, 20 and then the number of the demijohn, 39 in this case, unique for the vintage. Finally the bottles are numbered by hand, from 1 to 60 or 70 depending on the number produced.
In our opinion, among the most profound, complex, wonderfully graceful and exciting wines ever drunk!!!