Revigny-sur-Ornain was one of the very first cellars to manufacture strawberry wine. An extension to the current range of nectars and syrups which has been in Thibaut’s family for generations.

Revigny-sur-Ornain. The cork pops out, and you get this sudden explosion of flavours which your nostrils will love. The smell of strawberry comes through fighting, even after the wine making process. Let’s remind ourselves that grape based wine never smells of grape so this result is a great achievement. And the sparkling version is even more incredible, confirms Thibaut Guillaume. Thibaut grew up in a family of farmers from Marne (Eastern France) and more precisely in Revigny-sur-Ornain, where they have been based for decades. He joined the family business back in 2010. His goal: discover alternative uses to the strawberry. We have had to come up with new ways of exploiting strawberries dedicated to picking in case of bad crop due to poor weather. That’s how the idea of manufacturing strawberry wine was born. Back in 1992, we only had half an hectare of land, today 3 hectares are allocated for the production of wine and 2 for self service picking.

Thibaut’s background was never in wine tasting or growing. He had to learn the ropes from scratch. A challenge made even harder as no one had ever attempted strawberry wine before. “All we had was a blank canvas and a traditional recipe. We contacted a wine maker from the champagne region. Our question was simple: can we make wine with strawberries. His answer was straight forward: why not! So we gave it a go“. Thibaut’s first task was to improve the production process but soon extended to being in charge of the full process. Being unique doesn’t necessarily involve quality, but being successful is usually a good indication that you have made it. Today, 25,000 bottles are sold and not just in our region. Quality is well and truly genuine, there is no doubt about it.

Our reputation is now set in stone

Strawberry wine first appeared in the Champagne region, soon followed by the Loire valley, the north of France and then Alsace. Revigny Cellar has truly made its marks in the wine industry. A professional technique and expertise in wine tasting have taken Thibaut to the top of his game.

However, running such a business doesn’t go without glitches, for example when the fermentation goes over, but it is rare and can easily be fixed. Sugar and yeast are measured to perfection, clarification perfectly timed, filtering and unfiltering required to remove all the waste from the pressing. It is sometimes needed to add sugar to soften the wine, Thibaut explains. “We want to produce a mellow wine, without the bitter flavours of the strawberry. In the past, we have done it with less sugar, but the quality produced wasn’t good enough. Our aim is to produce top quality year after year.”

The right measurement of sugar and fruit is established based on a blending process well managed as well as échantillonnage des cuves. “The juice is stored in a tank for 6 months maximum. We want the product to remain fresh. The wine is bottled in November, the traditional sweet wine and our Coeur de Cuvée will require an extra 4 months inside a Meursault barrel.”  An aroma vanilla flavour gets added to this special blend. The sparkling blend remains the most explosive of them all and is one of our top products. “We manufacture 25,000 bottles of strawberry wine a year and 5,000 of syrup and nectar”, explains Thibaut. Each year 20 to 30 tonnes of fruit are required to fill up the tanks. Our customers thoroughly enjoy picking strawberries from our fields.

With 3 strawberry wines, one raspberry wine and a range of nectars, the Cellar has played its cards right with diversifying its range and giving our local Revigny strawberry the recognition it deserves. And how about the syrup, made exactly as Thibaut’s grandmother used to make it: “just like you would a jam but you keep the juice to make the syrup”. Thibaut is keen to keep the family tradition going and knows how important the quality of the strawberry is in order to maintain such well-known produce. And the best strawberry for the job? An old juicy variety called Korona. Memories come shooting back and everyone in my family wants to share their own experience. Strawberry is everywhere, especially in our lives, and creating new ways of enjoying it means it will live forever.