Mounir Saouma

Where They Are Now

Training at Montpellier gave Mounir Saouma an academic and technical base before the work moved into cellar and vineyard. In 1980, he worked in monastery vineyards and learned to make wine at Trappist monastery in Middle East, an early formation in disciplined production and a quieter working rhythm. After that came unlisted wineries/estates in Burgundy, other areas of France, and California, a sequence of stops that widened the frame without changing the underlying priorities: nuance, restraint, and attention to style over novelty. Today, Mounir is co-founder and winemaker of Lucien Le Moine (since 1999) and founder of Rotem & Mounir Saouma (since 2009). The two names mark two related expressions of the same approach: one built through a house he helped establish, the other carried under his own label. Across both, the emphasis stays on wines that are composed with control and allowed to speak in their own time.

Signature

Mounir's signature wines include Omnia, Arioso, Magis, and Inopia. The names read like a compact inventory of a house style: distinct markers within a larger program of structure, texture, and identity. They point to a winemaking practice that is deliberate in method and consistent in intent, with tradition serving as the frame rather than the ornament.

In Their Words “I saw the need for a place where we would make wine in the old tradition – not the young tradition, which is the last 30-40 years.” The point here is continuity, not nostalgia. Saouma is drawing a line between recent fashion and older practice, and placing his work on the side of the latter. That means slower judgment, steadier method, and a working respect for the way wine was handled before trend became a category. “I love Burgundy of course, but I've been drinking Châteauneuf all along as well.” The sentence is plainspoken, but it also maps a broad palate. Burgundy is not a closed center; Châteauneuf belongs in the same frame of reference.