Domaine de Roliebot

From vine row to bottle

The cellar decisions stay close to the fruit: Thierry Maurer, winemaker at Domaine de Roliebot in Mont Sur Rolle, works as vigneron-encaveur. At this estate, that title is not decorative. He carries the work from the vineyard into the cave, then through vinification and bottling, keeping the method under one set of hands. The Maurer family has held the domaine since 1916, and Thierry and Chantal Maurer took over in 2002. The line is practical: pruning, harvest calls, cellar choices, élevage, and the final bottle all remain part of the same household discipline. Domaine de Roliebot sits in Mont-sur-Rolle, within La Côte AOC, where Chasselas gives the white wines their local center and Gamay and Pinot Noir frame much of the red work. The estate is small, about 7 hectares, which matters less as a figure than as a working limit. Thierry can read the fruit by parcel, decide how far to diversify, and still keep the wines tied to the property. The house works conventionally, with the conviction that control comes from proximity rather than scale.

Cuves, barriques, and Terravin labels

The program at Roliebot covers still white, still red, rosé, sparkling, and dessert wines, with Chasselas, Gamay, and Pinot Noir at its center. The family diversified the planted varieties after 2002 and varied the cellar work with modern vinification choices, including barriques for selected wines. Whites such as Chasselas are kept toward freshness in stainless steel, while some reds may pass through partial barrel aging for structure. The point is not to make the cellar louder than the vineyard. It is to let each cuvée take the time and vessel it needs. All work from pruning to bottling is done on site, a modest sentence with a long reach. The 2025 vintage gives the rhythm clearly: white varieties, Gamay, and Pinot Noir were harvested in September 2024, aged for five months in cuve, and bottled in early April 2025. The domaine also carries Terravin-labeled wines, the Vaud distinction that places quality and regional identity in the same frame.

A cellar and terrace above the vines

The place works at a conversational pitch. Tastings move through the cellar and onto the terrace, with the surrounding vines close enough to keep the glass from feeling detached from the slope. Roliebot is a family-run Vaudois estate rather than a polished tasting machine: classic, rustic, compact, and built around explanation. Commented tastings matter here because the range is broad for a small property. A Chasselas can sit beside Gamay, Pinot Noir, a rosé, a sparkling wine, or a sweet wine, and the room has to carry the differences without turning them into performance. The old name Roliebot comes from local speech, joining words tied to noise and to the toads once associated with the marshes around the property. Even that story keeps the estate grounded in Mont-sur-Rolle rather than in a generic idea of wine country.

The release in the cave

The current movement is not a new address or a borrowed accolade, but the arrival of bottles shaped entirely at the estate. The 2025 vintage is now at the cave after its September 2024 harvest, five months in cuve, and early April 2025 bottling. That is the useful close here: fruit picked on the slope, held in the cellar, then returned to the room as Chasselas, Gamay, and Pinot Noir from Domaine de Roliebot.