Tasted in Régnié-Durette with Thomas Rivier, 07 February 2023.

Domaine Thomas Rivier
66 rue de la Grange Charton,
69430 Régnié-Durette
Tel: +33 6 64 26 30 59

Thomas Rivier works 3.5 hectares of vines – a plot that sits next to the church of Régnié-Durette and in front of his parent’s house. He actually has 5 hectares but doesn’t think that he will plant it all – “I’m working alone and I’m working organically – I don’t really have time to care for more than the existing 3.5 hectares that are planted.”

These vines have been in the family for “a long, long, time. Long before they returned to the management of my parents in 2007.” Thomas joined in 2018, commercialising some wine under the name Tomix and then fully at the domaine from 2019. Thomas is planning an agro-forestry approach with tree planting around the boders of his vines – he was a landscape gardener before who trained in Davayé before doing a stage in Cruzille with Domaine Guillot-Broux.

“I started from zero and commercialising my wines in covid time but I already have some export in a mix of markets. Since 2019 I’ve been working organically and for winemaking, I use concrete tank elevage – occasionally with old barrels – with whole clusters and no added yeasts. I’m not looking for much mechanical extraction just wetting the cap to stop it from drying out. I make a pied de cuve 2-3 days before the harvest and use that directly with the harvested grapes – no pre-fermentation cooling. About 9-10 months of elevage before bottling. There is just ~1g’ of sulfur, for safety, at bottling time otherwise none is used during elevage.”

Thomas on his recent vintages:
“2022 was a small harvest because of the dryness – 2021 was also small because of the frost – but I still produced a little more than in 22.”

The wines…

I like Thomas and like Thomas’ wines – they are neither too serious nor too natural – they are just very tasty. I also like his labels!

2021 Tomix, Regnié
Pretty red fruit – a certain tenderness. A hint of gas – but this is round, faintly grained – open, red-fruited and delicious – it’s in the style of the more natural Paris/Lyon bistrot wines except that it’s very tasty wine – no faults…

2021 Thomas Rivier, Régnié
This the cuvée with a little more structure which sees some time in old 228-litre barrels – about 30%
A little tighter in the complexity – but still some scale to this nose. More concentrated, supple and silky – ooh – that’s very different – here is plenty of wine, mobile in flavour with an almost fluid character – large-scaled in the finish. Long finishing here is some class and concentration – that’s a simply excellent wine!