The Grasshopper, the Blue Stones & the Precision Hand
Domaine Oedipoda is the sound of the new Beaujolais landing — an eight-hectare organic estate in Jullié, in the far north of the region where the crus begin, founded by Antoine Miguel and Bérengère Bezaud, a young couple who "rolled their bump" through the cellars and vineyards of Burgundy, the Rhône, the Jura, Chile, and New Zealand before choosing this corner of the Beaujolais to build their own project. The name is a field guide in a single word: Oedipoda, the genus of the blue-winged grasshopper — Oedipoda caerulescens — whose cerulean wings flash against the stony ground, exactly matching the pierres bleues, the blue stones of altered diorite and schist, that give the terroirs of Jullié and Juliénas their fame. The estate's crest is that grasshopper, wings open. The farming is precision organics: parcels restructured for finer work, grass managed by shallow soil cultivation under the vines, autumn cover crops of rye, peas, and clover, gentle pruning and high canopies, fermented plant extracts and decoctions alongside approved organic sprays. In the cellar: whole-bunch semi-carbonic macerations in concrete, durations decided by tasting, native yeasts, minimal sulphur, no filtration except when a wine insists, and 6 to 12 months on the lees in tank or barrel. The range runs from a fresh, taut Viognier and a peach-toned Beaujolais-Villages blanc to three distinct Gamays of Jullié and two Juliénas climats — the wild, violet-scented Les Chanoriers (96 points, Stuart Pigott) and the savoury, structured Beauvernay (94). "Le Beaujolais est une jolie terre d'accueil pour les jeunes vignerons," they say — Beaujolais is a welcoming land for young growers. Oedipoda is its proof.
The Wander Years, the Northern Hills & the Grasshopper Name
Antoine Miguel and Bérengère Bezaud are vignerons of the itinerant generation — young French growers who built their craft the old way, by going elsewhere. In their own words: "After rolling our bump through the cellars and vineyards of Burgundy, the Rhône, the Jura, Chile, New Zealand and beyond, we settled on eight hectares in the north of the Beaujolais, in the village of Jullié, to realise our project in organic agriculture." The itinerary matters: Burgundy for precision, the Rhône for structure, the Jura for nerve, the southern hemisphere for scale and speed. When they came home, they came with methods rather than habits — and with the clarity to know what they were looking for: hills, stones, Gamay, and a region where two young people could still afford to begin.
They found it in Jullié — a village of some 400 souls in the northern Beaujolais, on the doorstep of the Juliénas cru, where the hills rise toward the Beaujolais Vert and the soils turn from granite to the famous pierres bleues. As they told the regional press, "Le Beaujolais est une jolie terre d'accueil pour les jeunes vignerons" — Beaujolais is a welcoming land for young winegrowers — and their estate became part of a visible generational shift: alongside neighbours like Domaine Mont Bessay (debuted 2021), Oedipoda is one of the two "exciting new domaines on the block" singled out by Stuart Pigott in his survey of the new Juliénas. Most of their parcels were restructured and modernised — not to industrialise them, but the opposite: to allow a more precise, more respectful, organic viticulture of precision.
And the name? Oedipoda caerulescens — the blue-winged grasshopper — is the emblem of these stony hillsides: invisible at rest, its wings opening in a flash of cerulean when it takes flight from the warm blue stones. It is the perfect sigil for the estate: a creature of the blue-stone terroir, humble at ground level, startling in flight. The same could be said of the wines — and of the critics' response. Pigott scored the 2023 Juliénas Les Chanoriers 96 points, calling it "breathtaking mountain freshness and violet beauty," and the Beauvernay 94; Neal Martin covers the estate for Vinous; James Suckling has reviewed the Beaujolais-Villages blanc. A few vintages in, the grasshopper has landed.
"The wildness of the wild berries and herbs is at once ripe and joyful! Breathtaking mountain freshness and violet beauty that makes me feel stupid for reducing this experience to a numerical score! Incredibly energetic, wet-stone finish."
— Stuart Pigott, on Domaine Oedipoda Juliénas Les Chanoriers 2023 (96 pts)
Jullié, the Pierres Bleues & the Northern Door
The estate lies in Jullié, in the northernmost Beaujolais — the transition country where the rolling villages give way to the ten crus, and where Juliénas, the cru named for Julius Caesar, begins. The hills here rise to 300 metres and beyond, exposures running southeast and south, and the geology is the region's great trinity writ small: granite, schist, and the pierres bleues — blue-tinged altered volcanic rock that holds heat, drains fast, and stamps the wines with their signature of violets, wild berries, and wet stone. Gamay is the native language, with Chardonnay for the Beaujolais-Villages blanc and, more unusually, Viognier — a Rhône accent Antoine and Bérengère brought home from their travels, planted on a sandy granite parcel facing due south.
The viticulture is what the couple call precision organics. Most parcels were restructured to allow finer, more exact work: grass is managed by shallow cultivation concentrated under the vines, with care never to work so deep as to mix the soil horizons and disturb the microbial life that keeps the soil functioning. Every autumn, cover crops are sown — rye, peas, clover — returning organic matter or nitrogen to the soil depending on when they are destroyed. The vines are pruned with douces, respectful methods: precise de-budding, higher trellising for taller canopies, and a non-systematic approach to trimming. Disease pressure is met with organically approved products plus fermented plant extracts and decoctions. It is a programme a world away from both industrial Beaujolais and laissez-faire naturalism — deliberate, modern, and measured.
The terroir map divides into clear voices. The Beaujolais Jullié assembles the estate's finest blue-stone terroirs into one wine; Les Laneyries is the single-parcel Beaujolais-Villages from Jullié that "has nothing to envy the Juliénas," opulent yet gourmand after a year in tank. Within the cru itself, two climats: Les Chanoriers, a blue-stone parcellaire given the estate's longest maceration and a full year's tank élevage for freshness; and Beauvernay, "one of the most beautiful terroirs of the appellation," guaranteeing great concentration for a chiselled expression of Gamay. Around them, the whites: Chardonnay for the Villages blanc, and the southern-exposed Viognier that the couple deliberately keep taut and light rather than exuberant.
Jullié sits at the northern gate of the Beaujolais, a small village whose name increasingly appears on labels where once only "Beaujolais" stood. For young vignerons it offers exactly what the Côte d'Or no longer can: affordable old-vine parcels, serious geology, and a community welcoming to newcomers. Oedipoda's parcels here supply the estate's beating heart — the village blend, the Laneyries parcellaire, and part of the fruit for the Chanoriers — and the couple have become part of a quiet renaissance, farming organically in a village still dominated by conventional viticulture.
A blue-stone parcellaire within Juliénas, Les Chanoriers receives the estate's longest maceration and a full year of tank élevage — the recipe for a wine of both structure and lift. The 2023 earned Stuart Pigott's 96 points and one of the most effusive notes of his Juliénas report: wild berries and herbs "at once ripe and joyful," breathtaking mountain freshness, violet beauty, an incredibly energetic wet-stone finish. Bottled unfined and unfiltered with a spritz of natural CO2 — Pigott's advice: decant it. This is the cuvée that announced Oedipoda to the world.
Beauvernay is one of the great names of Juliénas — the couple call it "one of the most beautiful terroirs of the appellation" — a hillside that guarantees concentration and gives Gamay its most chiselled, architectural register. Oedipoda's version is the estate's most structured red: intense clove and dried sage on the nose, violet and sour cherry emerging with air, ample velvety tannins, a long savoury-liquorice finish — 94 points from Pigott, who warns it is a love-it-or-loath-it wine in youth and counsels aeration. The intellectual counterweight to Chanoriers' joy.
On a sandy granite parcel exposed fully south at 340 metres, Oedipoda grows Viognier — a souvenir of the couple's Rhône years and a rarity in the northern Beaujolais. They deliberately work against the variety's reputation: no opulence, no aromatic bombast, but "a more taut and light expression of the grape," harvested early for freshness. Two versions result — a direct-pressed white and a skin-contact macération — and the fruit is respected enough that the Jura négociant Oxymore buys from the same parcel for its own cuvées. Proof that in the right hands, Viognier belongs on granite.
Semi-Carbonic Concrete, Native Yeast & the Tasting Hand
The Oedipoda cellar is governed by one stated objective: wines as close as possible to the natural expression of their terroir. Freshness is protected at the source, with an obsessive attention to maturity dates. Intervention is kept to the minimum — no unnecessary manipulations, sulphur and other inputs reduced to the maximum degree compatible with the wine's safety. Fermentations run on native yeasts, and the wines are generally unfiltered, filtration reserved for cases of particular necessity.
The reds follow the region's oldest grammar, refined: all are vinified in semi-carbonic maceration — whole bunches — in concrete vats, with the length of each maceration decided by tasting, not by recipe. The Gamay Vin de France gets a short maceration for lightness, letting the floral register lead; the cru Chanoriers gets the longest, for structure. Élevage runs 6 to 12 months on the lees, in tank or barrel — the Chanoriers spending a full year in tank expressly "for freshness." The whites are pressed gently; the Viognier comes in two registers, one direct-pressed and taut, one macerated on skins. Nothing is dressed up: the bottles reach the market unfined, unfiltered, sometimes carrying a spritz of natural carbon dioxide that lifts the aromatics and rewards a decant.
What emerges is a range Stuart Pigott describes as not so much "natural" as innovative and alternative — wines with one foot in Beaujolais tradition and one in the wider world the couple travelled. The Beaujolais-Villages blanc offers chopped apple, lemon, and chamomile; the Viognier is fresh and peach-toned rather than opulent; the Gamay VdF is fruit first, then flowers, "the terroir having the last word"; the Beaujolais Jullié concentrates the blue-stone parcels; Les Laneyries is opulent yet gourmand; Les Chanoriers is wild, violet, and electric; Beauvernay is savoury, structured, and built to last. Precision organics in the vineyard, intuition in the cellar — the wander years made method.
Concrete, Covers & the Whole Bunch — The Oedipoda Method
The guiding principle of the Oedipoda cellar is that Gamay on blue stone needs translation, not transformation. Whole bunches go into concrete; fermentation starts on its own; the maceration lasts as long as the daily tasting says it should; the wines rest on their lees for six months to a year; sulphur is a scalpel, not a crutch; filtration is the exception. In the vines the same grammar applies: shallow work under the row, never deep enough to disturb the soil's horizons; rye, peas, and clover sown every autumn; canopies left tall; treatments from the organic pharmacopoeia and the decoction pot. The result is a style that is unmistakably Beaujolais — juicy, floral, drinkable — and unmistakably new: fresher, cleaner, more precise than the region's old norm, with the wild mountain energy that made a critic apologise for giving it a number.
Chanoriers, Beauvernay, Les Laneyries & the Blue-Winged Hand
The Oedipoda portfolio is eight hectares read in eight voices — two whites, an orange-tinged macération, and a ladder of Gamays from Vin de France to the two Juliénas climats. All reds are whole-bunch semi-carbonic in concrete; all wines are native-fermented, lees-aged six to twelve months, minimally sulphured, and bottled unfined and largely unfiltered. The estate also supplies organic Gamay and Viognier grapes to Oxymore, the Jura négociant of Guilhem Henriot and Rémi Thomas — a quiet mark of peer respect.
The Welcoming Land, the Wander Years & the Blue-Winged Hand
Domaine Oedipoda belongs to the most hopeful story in French wine: the generational renewal of the Beaujolais. In a region where land remains attainable and the community open, young vignerons who trained across the world are choosing the northern hills over the impossible arithmetic of the Côte d'Or — and raising the region's ceiling in the process. "Le Beaujolais est une jolie terre d'accueil pour les jeunes vignerons": the sentence Antoine and Bérengère gave the local press has become something like a movement's motto, and their estate — alongside new neighbours like Domaine Mont Bessay — is evidence that it is true.
The legacy being written at Jullié is one of precision without dogma. Oedipoda is not a "natural wine" estate in the slogan sense, nor a conventional one in conversion — it is something more durable: a working synthesis of everything its founders learned abroad, applied with humility to blue stones and old Gamay. Restructured parcels farmed to organic precision; cover crops and decoctions; whole bunches in concrete; macerations by tasting; minimal sulphur; wines unfined and alive. Stuart Pigott prefers to call the wines innovative and alternative rather than natural — and the distinction captures the estate exactly: tradition as a base, the world as a library, the terroir as the final editor.
The future of the project is the future of the northern Beaujolais itself — of Jullié and Juliénas stepping out from the shadow of the more famous crus, of Gamay treated with the seriousness of Pinot Noir, of blue stones read as carefully as Burgundy's limestone. As the Chanoriers and Beauvernay establish their reputations vintage after vintage, as the Viognier experiment proves itself on granite, and as more young growers follow the grasshopper north, Antoine Miguel and Bérengère Bezaud remain what they set out to be: two travellers who came home to eight hectares, and who are making wines that flash blue when they take flight — humble at rest, startling in the glass, and unmistakably of this stony, welcoming land.
"After rolling our bump through the cellars and vineyards of Burgundy, the Rhône, the Jura, Chile, New Zealand and beyond, we settled on eight hectares in the north of the Beaujolais, in the village of Jullié, to realise our project in organic agriculture."
— Antoine Miguel & Bérengère Bezaud, Domaine Oedipoda