Château des Bachelards

Gamay first, cellar second

Biodynamic preparations set the first terms of the day for Alexandra de Vazeilles, winemaker at Château des Bachelards in Fleurie, France. Her route to this bench passed through Château Latour in Pauillac, Domaine de Montille in Volnay, and Domaine Roulot in Meursault before Fleurie became her own ground. She owned Château des Bachelards from 2014-2023, and since 2023 has served as brand ambassador of her vintages, keeping the domaine’s wines in view under the name and framework she built there. The line matters because the work here asks for both Burgundian patience and Beaujolais clarity. De Vazeilles states the principle without ornament: “For me, true agriculture can only be biodynamic, it is about playing along nature and not against it.” At Château des Bachelards, that sentence begins in the vineyard rather than the cellar. The estate traces its foundation to 1100, when Benedictine monks of Cluny established vines in this part of northern Beaujolais. The inheritance is not treated as a museum piece. It is a working discipline, held in Gamay, granite, old walls, and the decisions that follow fruit from the slope into élevage.

Twelve hectares under biodynamic discipline

The estate works as a boutique 12-hectare domaine, with 5 hectares of contiguous land around the château in Fleurie AOC and further holdings in Beaujolais Villages, Saint-Amour, and Moulin-à-Vent. Gamay carries the program. The vines stand on steep granitic hillsides where the bedrock sits close to the surface, giving the wines their line and color without needing force in the cellar. Château des Bachelards has been chemical-free since 2007 and carries organic farming, Demeter, and Biodyvin certification. The method avoids carbonic, semi-carbonic, and thermovinification macerations, the familiar shortcuts often associated with Beaujolais production. Instead, the wines are vinified and matured over a long period of time, with oak barrels used as part of that élevage. The Clos des Bachelards gives the place its most concentrated gesture: old vines of 70 to 100 years, enclosed by a wall described as almost 1,000 years old. De Vazeilles has associated Cuvée Le Clos des Bachelards with this ground, and James Suckling gave the Fleurie AOC cuvée 98/100.

The wall around the vines

The room here is quieter than the language often attached to Beaujolais. Château, cellar, tasting room, and vineyard sit inside a historic monastic setting, less than an hour from Lyon but held apart by slope and wall. The Clos gathers the eye first, not because it is staged, but because the enclosure gives the vines a visible boundary. Tastings happen with that context close by: granite underfoot, Gamay in the glass, the wall marking where one parcel begins to speak more narrowly than the appellation around it. The place favors contemplative pacing over crowd energy. In the cellar, the long élevage belongs to the same thought as the farming outside. Nothing asks to be hurried. Cuvée Le Clos des Bachelards is in front of the visitor.