Julien et Sophie Schaal

In 2011, Julien Schaal and Olivier Biecher launched a wine merchant specializing in grands crus. He was joined in 2013 by his wife Sophie, a Burgundian oenologist trained in Dijon, who fell under the spell of Alsace. The couple then separated their cuvées, with Julien keeping the Grands Crus on one side, and Sophie offering more accessible wines on the other. Julien's wines are mainly made from Riesling, a grape variety he considers better able to convey the typicity of the terroirs classified as Grands Crus. Sophie, on the other hand, is more inclined towards wines for pleasure, gourmet and joyful, giving a warm impression of a "welcome" wine. At the same time, Julien and Sophie Schaal have been trading in South Africa since their first vintage of Chardonnay and Syrah in 2005. This venture enables them to create wines from Chardonnay, a grape variety to which they are particularly attached through their personal histories. But also Syrah and Chenin, with the particularity of trying to make terroir-driven wines in a vineyard unaccustomed to such practices. The result is fine wines that are inevitably influenced by Burgundy, while retaining a South African typicity.