Egiategia
Subsea winemaking pioneer
A winereef is an exceptional aquatic site where it is vinified underwater. It is a new approach to winemaking that uses underwater conditions to ferment. This doubly patented method in 2007 and 2017 makes it possible to naturally produce wines with singular aromas. Eco-responsible, Winereef is committed to protecting sites and their ecosystems.
EGIATEGIA is the worldwide pioneer of subsea winemaking. The first Winereef established in 2008.
At the beginning it was a crazy challenge, a pretty impertinence tinged with poetry: Winemaking under water in the Bay of Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
Like any wine adventure, it takes time, stubbornness and selflessness.
Like any maritime adventure, it is already an epic of countless stories and anecdotes.
Like any Basque adventure, there is freedom for only horizon.
The initial experience became know-how and then a fully-fledged vinification method.
The elaborate wine surprise, they are now like an evidence.
In Basque EGIATEGIA means: the factory from dream to reality.
une sélection intransigeante
In the smallest possible area from Socoa, everything starts with the search for grapes with singular qualities to match the requirements of underwater wine making. Only experience guides us. Cultivation methods, maturity, acidity, taste, aromatic potential… are the sought criteria. Of course, the complicity and sincerity of human relations guide our choices. For each colour, our early producer partners are always by our side. The grapes are vinified as close as possible to the plots according to specific protocols. These first wines are developed with a view to their future underwater fermentation. Now with more than 10 years of experience, we know how to develop or select the basic wines that will be submitted underwater by taking foam.
Le chai terrestre de socoa
La Maison des Blocs, the EGIATEGIA winery overlooking the Socoa beach and the bay of Saint-Jean-de-Luz (Basque Coast, France). An Amazing place, like a winery upon ocean. At the same time winery, ageing cellar, bottling plant, visitor centre, research lab… Like a lighthouse overlooking our winereef and the Bay of Biscay.
This historic building for the construction of the dykes during the XIX has been rehabilitated since 2012 as a winery.
