Sébastien Ruchonnet

The Climb

Sébastien Ruchonnet has been the winemaker of Anne-Catherine et Sébastien Ruchonnet since 2003. The role sits within a family structure rather than outside it, and the work has accumulated through repetition, observation, and the discipline of successive vintages. In that sense, winemaking here is less a leap than a maintained line of practice: one that treats inheritance as something to be worked, not merely claimed.

Today

The current focus is Grand Cru Chasselas and structured, elegant red wines. That split points to two modes of craft: one that favors precision and the specific character of place, and another that asks for balance, form, and restraint. The wines are built to hold their shape. They rely on measure rather than excess, with the vineyard’s expression kept visible rather than overridden.

Signature

Sébastien's signature wines include Lavaux Chardonnay vin doux «Nirvana», Dézaley «Côtes D'Or», St-Saphorin Malbec «La Ligne», St-Saphorin Chasselas «Courtisan», and Vieille Garde. Taken together, the range moves between sweetness and tension, breadth and precision, while staying anchored in the landscape that produced it. The names do useful work: they mark out a repertoire with its own internal logic, each bottle occupying a distinct place in the estate’s language of place.

In Their Words “Without risking being wrong, we can say that, in the family, the vine is a long tradition.”

Recognition

The estate’s wines are described as profound and mineral-rich for Grand Cru Chasselas, with structure and elegance defining the reds. Those are working markers, not slogans: depth, mineral tension, and a poised architectural feel that carry through the wines and keep them aligned with a long view of viticulture.