The Fox's Den Above the Lake: Jordi Renard & Maison Vulpin
A son of the French Riviera who arrived in Switzerland in 2011 with a hotel career and a head full of natural wine, Jordi Renard took over the old Domaine Crépon on the steep heights above Villeneuve and, in 2020, made it his own. Two biodynamic hectares where Lake Geneva meets the Rhône; cuvées named like cocktails; and a single rule — a minimum of intervention for a maximum of emotion.
Origin — From the Riviera to the Rhône Delta of the Lake
Jordi Renard grew up in the south of France — a child of the Riviera — and arrived in Switzerland in 2011 to work in the hotel industry. It was the people he met along the way, mostly in the world of natural wine, who changed the trajectory. Their philosophy took hold: savor the fruit of nature while treating it with respect. By 2020, the hotelier had become a vigneron, embarking on what he calls a challenge of a lifetime.
The object of that challenge was an estate with history. The vineyards — cellar and vines together — had been planted in 1984 by the Schenk family as Domaine Crépon, on steep hillsides facing the "cap" of Lake Geneva, where the Rhône finishes its alpine run and pours into the lake. The site sits halfway between the Swiss Rhône valley and the Lavaux terraces, on the moraines the great river left behind — a terroir the locals call the Chablais Vaudois.
Renard renamed the estate Maison Vulpin — vulpine, of the fox — and began converting the two hectares to his own uncompromising method. From 2022, the range split in two: Maison Vulpin for wines from the estate's own grapes, and Les Vins du Vulpin for négoce cuvées made from the fruit of trusted Swiss growers. The fox had found its den — and its range.
The Place — Moraine, Lake Light & Forty-Year-Old Vines
Two hectares in a single holding, on slopes steep enough to make you understand why the first vines here were planted as they were. Half the parcel is Pinot Noir — the estate's beating heart — completed by Pinot Gris, Gamaret, Garanoir, Sauvignon Blanc, Chasselas, and Gewürztraminer. Most of the vines are more than forty years old, rooted in Rhône moraine mixed with clay-limestone, washed in the reflection of Lake Geneva.
Biodynamic by Instinct
The vines are cultivated organically and biodynamically — certified organic under BioInspecta. Pruning, debudding, and leaf removal are timed to the lunar cycle, and the soil is worked and fed with plant purins and dynamized preparations. The goal is a vineyard in full biodiversity, where flora and fauna live in the symbiosis the vine needs.
Halfway Between Two Worlds
The Chablais Vaudois sits at a crossroads: the continental climate of the Rhône valley to the east, the lacquered warmth and reflected light of Lake Geneva to the west, and an alpine chill in the air. The wines carry that triple signature — a humid, cold climate with an alpine touch, written on clay-limestone and moraine.
Two Ranges, One Method
From 2022, Maison Vulpin is the estate label — fruit from the two home hectares; Les Vins du Vulpin is the négoce wing, built on grapes bought from other Swiss growers farmed to the same standards. The distinction is on the label; in the cellar and the vineyard, the method never changes.
Old Vines, Steep Ground
Plantings from 1984 on escarped slopes mean everything is done by hand and everything is slow. Low yields, deep roots in the moraine, and a lake-modulated ripening give the fruit its chiseled acidity and stony grip — the raw material of the estate's vivid, unsulfured style.
Winemaking — The Magic Operates Naturally
Renard's cellar protocol can be written in one sentence: the grapes are harvested by hand, sorted minutely, and then left alone. In the tank, spontaneous fermentation begins with indigenous yeasts — the magic, as the estate puts it, operates naturally. Juice is drawn off with a manual hydraulic or pneumatic press, gently, only as needed.
The details matter. Whites may macerate on skins before pressing — short three-day stints that turn Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer into glowing orange wines. Reds rest on their skins for ten to twenty days, with punch-downs and pump-overs to coax color and structure from the Pinot Noir and its companions. After malolactic fermentation, the wines are bottled with no inputs, no sulfur, no fining, and no filtration — nothing between the terroir and the glass.
It is a philosophy of radical restraint: un minimum d'interventions pour un maximum d'émotions. In a region where cellar technology is abundant, Renard's answer is hospitality in reverse — not the hotelier's service but the host's trust: set the table, then let the wine pour itself.
The Wines — Cocktails of the Den
A playful, evolving range named like drinks at a fox's bar: estate cuvées led by Pinot Noir and Chasselas, and négoce blends that roam the whole of Swiss viticulture. All natural, all unsulfured, all small lots.
Pinot Noir
The estate's heart — one hectare of forty-year-old vinesThe flagship: half the estate planted to Pinot Noir on Rhône moraine. Hand-harvested, ten to twenty days of maceration with gentle extraction, indigenous yeasts, bottled without sulfur or filtration. Bright red fruit, stony grip, a lake-cooled freshness — Vaud Pinot as the fox drinks it.
Tropical
The orange wine — a three-day maceration in the sunPinot Gris, Chasselas, Muscat, Aligoté, and Gewürztraminer macerated together for three days — a glowing, aromatic skin-contact cuvée that drinks like its name: mango skin, orange zest, tea tannins, and a saline finish off the moraine. The estate's most talked-about bottle.
Mixologie
The blender's art — five grapes, one glassPinot Noir, Syrah, Gamaret, Savagnin, and Chardonnay in a single cuvée — red, white, and Savagnin fermented together, the fox's answer to field blending. Juicy, spicy, impossible to categorize; best served slightly cool with charcuterie and no preconceptions.
Bonbon Sauvage & the Rest
The candy shop — Gamay, Gamaret, Sylvaner and friendsThe range's wilder corner: Gamay, Gamaret, Sylvaner, Pinot Noir, and Chasselas coaxed into a "wild candy" of a wine, alongside varietal Syrah and Gamay négoce bottlings and a rosé. Small volumes, constant rotation — the den restocks by instinct, not by plan.
Legacy — A Minimum of Intervention, a Maximum of Emotion
Maison Vulpin is young, but its legacy is already legible. Renard is one of the small band of growers proving that the Vaud shore of Lake Geneva — long overshadowed by the Lavaux — can make natural wines with genuine voice and identity. The Chablais Vaudois has a fox in its vineyards now, and people are starting to look up the hill.
The two-range model is the quiet innovation. By pairing a two-hectare estate with a négoce wing sourced from like-minded Swiss growers, Renard built a viable, creative business on a footprint that would otherwise be a hobby. Les Vins du Vulpin lets him experiment with Syrah, Gamay, Savagnin, and Muscat far beyond his own plantings — the den extends by friendship, not by land.
And there is the conversion itself: a 1984 Schenk-family vineyard, taken over by a self-taught hotelier and turned biodynamic and zero-zero within a few vintages. If the wines keep arriving as they have — vivid, stable, playful, unmistakably of the lake — Maison Vulpin will stand as one of the most charming small-estate reinventions in Swiss wine.