The Pirouette & the Freedom of Alsace

The story of Les Vins Pirouettes begins with Christian Binner — a third-generation vigneron in Ammerschwihr whose family has been farming in Alsace since 1770. Christian took over the family domaine in 1999 and quickly became one of the region's most respected natural winemakers, producing legendary zero-sulphur wines from old vines planted by his grandfather in the 1930s. Inspired by his friendship with Marcel Lapierre and guided by biodynamic principles, Binner built a unique anthroposophic cellar and proved that Alsace could produce wines of profound terroir transparency without any additives.

But Christian was troubled by what he saw around him. Organic and biodynamic growers — neighbours farming exceptional terroirs with integrity — were selling their grapes for little to cooperatives, where they disappeared into anonymous, technical wines. It was, in his words, a tragedy. In 2008, he decided to act. He recruited two oenologist-chemists, Pierre Sanchez and Xavier Couturier, who had been helping him analyse his own wines at the microscopic level, and together they approached fellow organic growers across Alsace with a proposition: stop selling to cooperatives, start bottling under your own name, and make natural wine with our guidance.

The collective launched officially around 2009 under the name Les Vins Pirouettes — a name chosen to symbolise both the joy and mastery of the movement. "A pirouette is a gesture of freedom, emotion, and joy," Christian explained, "but also the result of know-how and mastery." The first growers joined from villages across the Haut-Rhin and Bas-Rhin — Stéphane Bannwarth in Obermorschwihr, Eric Kamm in Dambach-la-Ville, Jean-Marc Dreyer in Rosheim, Hubert and Christian Engel in Orschwihr — and the portfolio quickly expanded. In 2018, Rémi Ségura — former sommelier and Luxembourg's Best Sommelier 2012 — joined the team to handle commercial development and export. By 2023, the collective had grown to some twenty growers, and Christian stepped back to focus on his own domaine, leaving Rémi, Pierre, and Xavier to steer the Pirouettes ship into its next chapter.

The philosophy of Les Vins Pirouettes is deceptively simple: each cuvée is vinified at the winemaker's own place, by their own team, respecting their history and character. This is not a négociant project where grapes are bought and vinified in a central facility. It is a genuine collective where Pierre Sanchez and Xavier Couturier provide oenological guidance — monitoring fermentations, advising on cellar protocols, and ensuring quality — while the growers retain full ownership of their wine from vine to bottle.

The cellar protocols are consistent across the collective: hand-harvesting with triage in the vineyard; spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeasts; no selected yeasts, no enzymes, no chaptalisation, no fining, no filtration, and no added sulphur. Some cuvées see a tiny amount of total SO₂ (8–16ppm) from natural processes, but nothing is added. The wines are made in stainless steel tanks, concrete vats, old oak foudres, and barrels — whatever suits the grower's cellar and the vintage.

The collective's cuvées are organised into distinct stylistic families. The Glou-Glous are highly drinkable, juicy wines — light reds, fresh whites, and easy pét-nats designed for immediate pleasure. The Tutti-Frutti cuvées are white blends of multiple varieties, direct-pressed and aged on lees for a veritable basket of fruit. The Eros wines are flamboyant skin-contact orange wines — macerated for days or weeks, amber-hued, textured, and complex. The Brutal cuvées (part of the international Brutal wine corporation) are wild, often whole-bunch macerated wines with zero sulphur and fierce individuality. And the sparkling wines — pét-nats and crémants — are made by bottle fermentation with zero additions of sugar, yeast, or sulphur. This stylistic diversity, unified by the zero-input philosophy, is what makes Pirouettes unique.

Les Vins Pirouettes is not merely a wine label; it is a proof that natural wine can be made collectively, joyfully, and sustainably at scale without sacrificing individuality or integrity. In a French wine culture that has historically valorised the solitary estate and the singular genius, Christian Binner, Rémi Ségura, Pierre Sanchez, and Xavier Couturier have demonstrated that twenty small growers, sharing knowledge and a label, can produce a portfolio of extraordinary diversity and quality — and that the best way to save organic grapes from the cooperative tank is to give the growers the tools, the guidance, and the market to bottle them themselves.

The legacy of Pirouettes is the legacy of liberty, diversity, and fraternity applied to viticulture. The growers are not employees; they are partners. The wines are not branded products; they are individual expressions of terroir and personality. The consumer is not deceived by négociant anonymity; they know exactly who made their wine, where it came from, and how it was grown. And the Lycée Viticole de Rouffach — with its Pulpe de l'École cuvée — represents the future: natural winemaking entering the official curriculum, the next generation learning to farm without chemicals and ferment without additives.

The future of the collective is one of expansion and deepening. As new growers join from across Alsace, as the export network grows under Rémi Ségura's stewardship, and as the Eros, Glou-Glou, and Tutti-Frutti families continue to evolve with each vintage, Les Vins Pirouettes remains what it has always intended to be: a joyful, creative movement of skilled artisans making soulful, zero-sulphur wines that shake up the codes and reveal the specificities of the Alsatian terroirs. The story of Les Vins Pirouettes is the story of a group of people who looked at the modern wine world and chose to pirouette — to spin freely, with mastery and joy — and who proved that the best bottle from Alsace is the one that needs no explanation, only a glass, a meal, and the patience to let the wine choose its own moment.