Wine estate François Villard

Who would have thought, when he started in 1989, that he would be, almost twenty years later, one of the leaders of the Northern Rhône? Without ever losing his mischievous look, François went for what simply looked like a vocation. He built it all up in a kind of frenzy of pleasure and hard work. Neither eccentric nor timid, he pushed his ideas to the limit, often on instinct. Over the years, everything has been ordered in a solid experience and the man has forged himself a strong character as a winegrower. In 1993, a first article in the press, a first selection in a guide: François jumps like a goat in his kitchen, as happy as a kid in a playground. For the young man has always dreamed of one day living in the world of the great wine makers, without arrogance but as if by evidence. To rediscover forever "the magic of the vine stock" that marked him at the age of twenty, when he met his first winegrowers. To root this emotion for life, like when he tasted Lucien Desormeaux's Condrieu in 1987. In Poncins, where he planted his very first vineyard, there is a large rock. That's where François sometimes sits on days of doubt: what if the dream stopped? The classic blues of a hyper-active winegrower who will never turn away from his true nature: wine adventurer.

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