The Vintage Cars, the Japanese Carpenter & the 100% Zero
O2Y — the initials of Olivier, Yves and Yoshinori — is one of the Jura's most talked-about natural wine projects: a micro-négoce in Poligny born in 2020 from the friendship of three men crazy about living wines. Olivier Guala, the Jura native, came to wine from a previous life restoring and trading classic automobiles — a passion that still haunts the premises: in the big hangar that serves as cellar, the tanks and barrels share the floor with old collector cars. Yves Roy, of Domaine Nøvice, and Yoshinori "Yoshi" Kuroda met as students at the Lycée Viticole in Lons-le-Saunier; Yoshi had arrived from Japan speaking no French, a former carpenter driven purely by a passion for natural wine discovered at home — a journey that would lead him to work as assistant to Emmanuel Houillon at the mythical Domaine Overnoy. The idea: travel across France after harvest, find grapes grown with respect for nature, and vinify them the O2Y way — no inputs whatsoever, only indigenous yeasts, no fining, no filtration, not a gram of sulfur. "O2Y = 100% ZERO." The sourcing map spans Alsace, Beaujolais, Burgundy, Savoie, Roussillon and the South-West, down to forgotten old varieties; the methods run from seven-hour slow pressings to seven-week carbonic macerations. In 2021, Jura frost and hail pushed the sourcing wider — and made the friendships deeper. Since 2023, Olivier has taken the reins alone, joined by Romain Doerler, a young Alsatian oenologist who worked with Fanfan Ganevat, and the project gained its first own vines between Arbois and Poligny. The goal never changed: sulfur-free wines that are aromatic, fresh and above all accessible to everyone — including the uninitiated.
The Car Dealer, the Overnoy Apprentice & the Three-Initial Name
Every négoce has a founding friendship; few are as improbable as this one. Olivier Guala grew up in the Jura and spent his first career in a completely different kind of vintage: restoring and trading classic cars. The hangar in Poligny that became the O2Y cellar was, and remains, a garage at heart — walk in today and the barrels and tanks still share the floor with collector automobiles, the smell of oak mixing with engine oil and history. Wine was the second calling, pursued with a mechanic's patience and a collector's obsession.
The other two founders met at wine school. Yves Roy — who would go on to found Domaine Nøvice — and Yoshinori Kuroda trained together at the Lycée Viticole in Lons-le-Saunier, the Jura's viticultural school. Yoshi's path there was extraordinary: a carpenter in Japan, he discovered natural wine at home, fell for it completely, and moved to France without speaking French to learn to make it. His apprenticeship led him to one of the holiest cellars in the natural wine world — Domaine Overnoy in Pupillin, where he worked as assistant to Emmanuel Houillon, guardian of the Ploussard tradition that started the whole movement. Carpenter's hands, Overnoy's schooling, a Japanese sensibility for precision: Yoshi brought all of it to O2Y.
In 2020, the three friends made it official, naming the project with their own initials — O for Olivier, 2, Y for Yves and Yoshinori. The first vintage was built on purchased organic grapes and pure conviction: absolutely 100% natural wines, no inputs whatsoever, indigenous yeasts only. Then came 2021 — the year of April frosts and summer hailstorms that ravaged the Jura — and the project responded by widening its map, collaborating with growers across France while keeping every relationship from 2020. In 2023, Olivier took over the project solo, joined by Romain Doerler, a young Alsatian oenologist trained with Jean-François "Fanfan" Ganevat in Rotalier — and O2Y acquired its first own vineyards between Arbois and Poligny. The garage-door adventure continues, the motivation and passion intact.
"Since the beginning of O2Y in 2020 with Yves and Yoshi, I've wanted to make absolutely 100% natural wines — with no inputs whatsoever, fermenting only with the indigenous yeasts naturally present in the grapes."
— Olivier "Gallus" Guala, O2Y
Poligny, the Revermont & the All-France Map
Poligny is a small market town in the Jura département, set against limestone cliffs east of Arbois — Comté country, at the edge of the Revermont, the foothill zone where the Jura plateau begins its rise toward the Alps. The local terroir is the classic Jurassic recipe: blue and grey marls, Lias clay, and limestone, producing wines of pronounced minerality and savoury depth. It is also, by unhappy fate, one of France's most frost-bitten corners — the April freezes and summer hailstorms of 2021 hit the region hard, and it was precisely this climate anxiety that shaped O2Y's roaming structure.
Since 2023, the project has put down its own roots: Olivier took over vineyard parcels between Arbois and Poligny — 1.3 hectares of Pinot Noir, 0.43 hectares of Savagnin, and 0.7 hectares of Poulsard and Trousseau, including the Poligny plot called En Trouillot Batard. Farmed organically and without chemicals, these own vines now supply the domaine bottlings — first vintages marked by freshness, aromatics and purity — while the négoce side continues to roam.
And roam it does. The sourcing map reads like a love letter to French organic viticulture: Domaine Hertz in Eguisheim, Alsace (biodynamic Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris); old horse-ploughed Gamay plots in Saint-Germain-des-Nuelles, Beaujolais, on three soil types — granite, marl, limestone; Chiroubles for the rare Gamaret; Ayze in Savoie, where, after the sudden passing of Dominique Belluard, Olivier secured a small allocation of Gringet from some of the most iconic vineyards in the village; Meursault for Aligoté; La Roche de Solutré in southern Burgundy for old-vine Pinot Noir; Cassagnes in Roussillon, where Aymeric Paulet of La Vigne Grande farms Carignan and Syrah biodynamically at 340 metres; and the garrigue around Nîmes for Grenache and Syrah. Each cuvée is a collaboration between the three friends and the grower who farmed the fruit — a story that starts in the soil and ends in your glass.
The O2Y cellar sits in a big hangar in Poligny, where cuves and barrels coexist with Olivier's collection of vintage cars — the automotive past literally parked beside the winemaking present. The town lies at the edge of the Revermont, beneath limestone cliffs, in Comté country. From here, the team sets out each harvest to crisscross France, and here the grapes return: to long pressings, slow macerations, and years of quiet élevage among the old automobiles.
For its first three years O2Y was pure négoce; in 2023 Olivier took over the project's first own vineyards: 1.3ha of Pinot Noir in Arbois, 0.43ha of Savagnin, and 0.7ha of Poulsard and Trousseau in Poligny — including the evocatively named plot En Trouillot Batard. Farmed organically and without chemicals, the parcels give the project its own supply of local grapes and its first domaine wines — the négoce learning applied to home soil.
The most poignant line on the sourcing map runs to Ayze in Savoie. When Dominique Belluard — the grower who made Gringet famous — passed away suddenly, Valérie Belluard chose to sell the harvest to family and friends. Olivier secured a small allocation of Gringet from some of the most iconic vineyards in Ayze, on calcareous and marl soils, and the cuvée Gringalet was born: a tribute pressed directly to cuve and aged on fine lees in barrel. Some négoce relationships are business; this one is stewardship.
The recurring names tell the story: Domaine Hertz in Eguisheim for biodynamic Alsatian Pinots (Pourquoi Non?); Aymeric Paulet of La Vigne Grande in Cassagnes for high-altitude biodynamic Carignan and Syrah (Carrément, Sarah); and Nicolas Boudier, a dear friend of Olivier, who allocates his entire 0.17-hectare Poulsard vineyard in Villette-lès-Arbois every year for Le P'tit Nico. Far from the anonymous co-op model, every O2Y cuvée names its grower — the philosophy of a négoce that tells a story from soil to glass.
The Seven-Week Carbonic, the Slow Press & the Accessible Hand
The O2Y rulebook is stated on every tech sheet as a simple equation: O2Y = 100% ZERO. No inputs of any kind; fermentation exclusively by the indigenous yeasts naturally present on the grapes; no fining; no filtration; no added sulfur at any point. Olivier is candid about the difficulty — it is often a daunting task, and each spring, as nature and yeasts awaken, he personally validates every cuvée before it goes on sale. Nature's wines are alive, the tech sheets warn, and can evolve between description and tasting. That aliveness is the point.
Within the zero frame, the cellar is a playground of techniques. Very long pressings — seven or eight slow hours that extract colour and flavour without any maceration at all (the Carrément Carignan and the Cabaret Gamaret). Carbonic and semi-carbonic macerations of every length: two weeks for the Poulsard and the Pourquoi Non?, three for the Trousseau, five for the Solutré Pinot Noir, and a full seven weeks for the Vinum Bibo Gamay, the house's ode to pure fruit. Direct pressing into cuve or barrel for the whites; demi-muid and foudre ageing that can stretch to extremes — the Arbois Chardonnay Temps Libre spent 36 months in demi-muids, and its sibling Passé Simple went to 48 months in barrel. There is even L'Originel, a 2011 Savagnin topped up for eleven years — not the classic oxidative style, but a rarer biological ageing under flor that metabolises volatility into elegance.
Each of the three founders handled their own cuvées — Yoshi's touch is on Pourquoi Non?, the Pinot Noir–Pinot Gris co-ferment — but the philosophy stayed unified: nothing added, nothing removed. And underneath the experimentation runs a quietly radical aim, stated in Olivier's own words: wines that are aromatic, fresh, and above all accessible to everyone, including the uninitiated. Zero-zero winemaking without the gatekeeping — natural wine as hospitality, from three friends who simply love the stuff. Annual production runs between 10,000 and 16,000 bottles.
The Zero Equation & the Spring Validation
The guiding principle of O2Y is that zero is not a limit but a lens. No inputs, native yeasts, no sulfur — and then total freedom within the frame: seven-hour slow presses that mimic maceration, carbonic infusions from two to seven weeks, co-ferments of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, barrel élevage from nine months to four years, multi-vintage blends when frost demands them, and one Savagnin that spent eleven years under flor. Every spring Olivier tastes each tank and cask before release — a living quality control that no certificate could replace. The result: wines of vitality and transparency, expressive and individual, that welcome the curious rather than testing them. One hundred percent zero, one hundred percent hospitality.
Vinum Bibo, Pourquoi Non?, Le P'tit Nico & the Roaming Hand
The O2Y range is a rotating map of France in zero-sulfur form — cuvées that shift with each vintage's sourcing and experiments, from Jura Poulsard to Alsatian Pinots, Savoyard Gringet to Beaujolais Viognier. All native-yeasted, unfined, unfiltered, unsulfured. Production: 10,000–16,000 bottles a year.
Three Friends, Two Countries & the Hospitality Hand
O2Y is not merely a négoce; it is natural wine's most charming proof that the movement's future is borderless — a Jura car restorer, a Nøvice founder, and a Japanese carpenter who crossed the world without speaking French, meeting at wine school and deciding to vinify all of France with nothing at all. In an era when zero-zero winemaking can feel like an exclusive club, O2Y made it an open door: the stated goal, from day one, was sulfur-free wines that are aromatic, fresh and accessible to everyone — including the uninitiated. The garage hangar in Poligny — barrels beside collector cars — has quietly become one of the Jura's most interesting addresses, a place where a seven-week carbonic Gamay and an eleven-year flor-aged Savagnin can emerge from the same pair of hands.
The legacy of O2Y is the legacy of friendship as a supply chain. Every cuvée is a named collaboration: Nicolas Boudier's 0.17 hectares of Poulsard, offered every year since 2020; Domaine Hertz's biodynamic Pinots from Eguisheim; Aymeric Paulet's high-altitude Carignan from Cassagnes; the Belluard family's Gringet, entrusted in grief after Dominique's passing. Olivier, Yves and Yoshi did not chase appellations — the wines are proudly Vin de France where the rules demand it. They did not chase volume — 10,000 to 16,000 bottles, each validated by Olivier's own palate every spring before release. They made a rotating map of France in zero-sulfur form — Vinum Bibo, Pourquoi Non?, Le P'tit Nico, Gringalet, Temps Libre, Fidji, Carrément, and whatever the next vintage brings.
The future of the project is rooted now in its own soil: the first estate vineyards between Arbois and Poligny — Pinot Noir, Savagnin, Poulsard and Trousseau at En Trouillot Batard — give O2Y a domaine heart to match its roaming négoce soul, with Romain Doerler, fresh from Ganevat's cellar, at Olivier's side. As the first domaine vintages establish themselves, as the sourcing friendships deepen with each harvest, and as the vintage cars watch another élevage from the hangar floor, O2Y remains what three friends founded in 2020: a roaming, joyful, absolutely zero compromise — wine made from all of France, for everyone. The initials were three. The invitation is universal.
"The adventure continues, with the sole aim of offering sulfur-free wines that are aromatic, fresh and above all accessible to all, including the uninitiated."
— Olivier "Gallus" Guala, O2Y