The Ammonite & the Eight Generations

The story of Domaine de la Touraize is a story of resurrection — of a family line that stretches back over three centuries and that nearly disappeared in the trauma of the twentieth century. André-Jean ("A-J") Morin is the eighth generation of Morin to tend vines in Arbois, beginning with his ancestor Etienne Morin in 1704. For centuries, the family farmed grapes and made wine, but the calamitous First World War left deep scars. A-J's grandfather, Marius Morin, deeply affected by his years of service, stopped producing wine in 1922 and sold off all the family vineyards except for one tiny parcel: La Touraize. It was from this single surviving plot, against the advice of his wounded father, that A-J's father Michel Morin began rebuilding the estate in the mid-1950s — slowly buying back the land that had been sold, restoring life and continuity to a family tradition that had nearly been extinguished.

A-J joined his father in 1985, and together they expanded the vineyard holdings, but like his father and grandfather before him, they sold their fruit to the local cooperative — a common fate for Jura growers who lacked the capital to build their own wineries. For nearly twenty-five years, A-J's grapes vanished into the anonymity of the coop tanks. But A-J is bright-eyed, quick-spoken, and infectiously enthusiastic — a mind that could never be satisfied plying his trade under another's label. In 2009, he made the decisive break: he left the cooperative, sold three of his fifteen hectares to finance the construction of his own winery, and began bottling the entirety of his production under the Domaine de la Touraize label. It was a gamble that required selling family land, but it was the only way to give eight generations a voice.

In 2016, the gamble gained its essential partner. A-J's wife, Héléana Morin, quit her job as a nurse to join the estate full-time. Her arrival coincided with the completion of the organic conversion — the estate had been certified organic (AB/Ecocert) that same year — and she provided the organisational and emotional support that allowed A-J to push further. In the autumn of 2017, they began experimenting with biodynamics, and by 2019/2020 they received Demeter certification. Today, the domaine is a true family affair: A-J in the vineyards and cellar, Héléana managing the business and welcoming visitors, and both of them driven by a shared conviction that wine should be clean, precise, and utterly expressive of its terroir.

The name La Touraize comes from that original family parcel — the one vineyard that Marius could not bear to sell, the seed from which the entire estate was reborn. The label bears an ammonite fossil, found in the vineyards alongside countless other Jurassic fossils of all shapes and sizes. Some of these ammonites are huge, and they serve as more than decoration: they are a reminder that the soils beneath the vines are ancient seabed, that the marls and limestones are saturated with deep time, and that the Morin family is merely the latest custodian of a story that began millions of years ago. The ammonite is the domaine's symbol, its anchor, and its promise: what survives is what adapts, what persists, and what carries the memory of the past into the future.

The guiding philosophy of Domaine de la Touraize is expressed in three words: precision, cleanliness, and terroir. André-Jean is committed to winemaking that expresses each parcel distinctly — not through heavy extraction or new oak, but through patient observation, indigenous yeasts, and a cellar regimen that is adamantly non-interventionist. His approach is not a rejection of tradition but a deepening of it: he vinifies each plot separately, uses minimal sulfur, and ages his wines in a visually comforting mix of decades-old foudres, well-worn tonneaux, and a few stray clay jars — some foudres over 100 years old — to allow the terroir to speak without masking. The result is a portfolio that is typified by clarity, minerality, and drinkability — wines that are as precise as they are approachable, as clean as they are complex.

The methodology is deliberately traditional and fundamentally Arboisian. All grapes are hand-harvested — and nearly all vineyard work is performed manually. For the reds, A-J even de-stems by hand using an old local tool known as a crible: a wooden plank with grape-sized holes over which the harvested bunches are rolled back and forth until the fruit falls through. This tool, famously employed by Pierre Overnoy in Pupillin, is slow, gentle, and preserves the integrity of the berries in a way that machines cannot. The reds — Ploussard, Trousseau, and Pinot Noir — are vinified with indigenous yeasts and aged in a combination of stainless steel, old barriques, and large foudres. The whites are fermented and aged in old barrels and foudres of varying sizes — and here is where A-J diverges from many of his Jura peers: most of his white wines are topped-up (ouillé), offering a bare-knuckled minerality uncomplicated by oxidative notes yet still humming with telltale Jura salinity and power.

The two sous-voile Savagnin wines that A-J does produce, however, are among the finest the Jura has to offer. The Savagnin "Typé" is aged sous voile for 24 months in 228-litre barrels stored in the attic, developing walnut, curry, and complex oxidative notes while retaining a sense of focus and energy that unites it stylistically with the topped-up cellar-mates. The Vin Jaune is made from Savagnin grown on northwest-exposed blue marl in Petit Curoulet, aged sous voile for a minimum of six years in old oak, with no racking or handling, then bottled in the classic 62cl clavelin. These are not oxidative curiosities; they are profound, structured wines that demonstrate the full range of what Savagnin can achieve when handled with patience and precision.

The cellar is not a technological facility; it is a family space — a modest building just off the main road, filled with the comforting presence of ancient wood, where A-J and Héléana do the work. There is no consultant recommending corrective enzymes, no recipe that overrides the vintage, no pressure to produce radical natural wines or heavy, extracted blockbusters. There is only the family, the mosaic of soils, the old foudres, and the patience to let each parcel take the time it needs. The result is a portfolio of wines that are honest, precise, and alive — wines that have earned a star in the RVF Guide Vert, medals in French competitions, and a place on the wine lists of discerning restaurants worldwide. As one importer noted, these are wines that can stay open for days without any issue — a testament to their exacting, fastidious working regimen.

To understand Domaine de la Touraize, one must understand that it is not merely a winery; it is a family resurrection, a terroir laboratory, and a proof that eight generations can become the voice of Arbois. The identity of the project is defined by the couple — André-Jean, the eighth-generation vigneron who rebuilt his family's legacy from a single parcel after his grandfather sold everything else; and Héléana, the nurse who became a vigneronne in 2016 and provided the organisational and emotional foundation for the estate's biodynamic leap. The identity is also defined by the ammonite on every label — a fossil found in the vineyards, representing the Jurassic seabed beneath the vines, the deep time that shapes the wine, and the family's refusal to let their history disappear. The estate is not a monoculture; it is a home. The result is a portfolio of wines that are not merely products but expressions of a place and a family — each bottle a testament to the conviction that wine should be precise, clean, and utterly honest.

The identity is also defined by independence — the 2009 break from the cooperative, the selling of three hectares to finance a cellar, the refusal to let eight generations end in anonymity. A-J is bright-eyed, quick-spoken, and infectiously enthusiastic — a mind that could never be satisfied plying his trade under another's label. He is meticulous, fastidious, and rigorously labour-intensive. He de-stems by hand with a crible. He tops up his whites when many Jura producers let them oxidise. He keeps sulfur at 10–20 mg/L when convention would allow far more. He produces roughly 30,000 bottles per year — small, focused, and exacting. The estate exports to Australia, the UK, Scandinavia, and beyond, with wines on the lists of some of the finest restaurants in the world. Yet A-J and Héléana remain approachable, warm, and deeply rooted in their community — a couple who believe that wine is made by people, not by machines or algorithms.

The identity is also defined by refusal — the refusal to chase trends, the refusal to use heavy extraction or new oak, the refusal to let wines oxidise unless deliberately chosen for sous voile, and the refusal to treat wine as a commodity rather than an agricultural product. A-J has experimented with his range without losing focus, keeping the portfolio modest and coherent. He has moved from cooperative anonymity to organic to biodynamic certification. He has built a cellar of old foudres, well-worn tonneaux, and clay jars. But he has never abandoned the traditions that make the Jura what it is: Vin Jaune, Vin de Paille, Macvin, Crémant. The wines reflect this intentionality: they are not radical, not rustic, not naive. They are precise, clean, and deeply considered — the product of an eighth-generation vigneron's pride and a farmer's love of his land converging on nine hectares of Jurassic marl.

The future of Domaine de la Touraize is tied to the continued health of its nine hectares of organic and biodynamic vines, the deepening of biodynamic practices, and the continued partnership of A-J and Héléana. They are eager to explore new expressions of the Arbois terroir, to deepen their understanding of the mosaic of soils, and to obtain ever more precise, elegant, and terroir-driven expressions from the fruit of their own Jurassic soils. Les Voisines will continue to be the fresh ambassador, Les Corvées the profound red, and Savagnin Typé the sous-voile masterpiece. They do not chase trends; they chase the truth of their land, and they have the patience to let that truth speak in its own voice — a voice that is Arbois-born, Jura-rooted, and unmistakably Morin.

In an age of increasing industrialisation in wine — of global varieties, engineered yeasts, and corporate consolidation — Domaine de la Touraize stands as a compelling alternative, not because it rejects modernity but because it has embraced a deeper modernity: one that values organic farming over chemical convenience, biodynamic preparations over synthetic inputs, hand harvest over mechanical efficiency, hand de-stemming with a crible over industrial crushers, indigenous yeasts over inoculation, old foudres over new oak intrusion, minimal sulfur over heavy dosing, topped-up whites over oxidative uniformity, parcel-by-parcel vinification over blending anonymity, family continuity over corporate expansion, and the specific voice of Arbois's mosaic of soils over the standardised replication of a global style. André-Jean and Héléana Morin are not merely making wine; they are proving that eight generations can become the voice of Arbois, that nine hectares of Jurassic marl can produce wines of international recognition, that a wine marked with an ammonite can possess the most profound identity, and that the simplest philosophy — each bottle is a tale — is often the most profound. From the first vine planted by Etienne Morin in 1704 to the wines of today: all united in one family, one synthesis, one unanswerable argument for the possibility of authentic, organic, hand-made, passionately honest wine from the Jurassic heart of the Jura.