Domaine des Bonnettes

Chasselas as the point of reference

Chasselas gives Dominique Maigre, winemaker at Domaine des Bonnettes in Lully, Bernex Ge, Switzerland, his clearest white-wine marker. La Chapelle sits at the center of the range, not as a decorative label, but as the bottle that fixes the estate’s voice in the glass. Maigre’s route to the cellar carries the discipline of the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Zürich, where structure, sequence, and exactitude matter before any romance of the vineyard can begin. At Domaine des Bonnettes, that training reads in the way the wines are assigned their roles: Chasselas for La Chapelle, Chardonnay set apart for dry and ample white wine, Sauvignon Blanc extending the line without loosening its Geneva frame, and Gamaret 2018 anchoring the red side with black fruit and spice.

His operator role began in 2005, placing the work in a span long enough for method to become habit. The estate remains small in scale and family-run in feeling, a producer whose public face is less campaign than cellar door. Maigre’s title is winemaker here, yet the work described around him is broader than one station. It is growing, producing, receiving, and keeping the range coherent across varieties that can easily pull in different directions.

A Geneva range held by method

The program at Domaine des Bonnettes is built around still white wine in the Genève appellation, with Chasselas as the named grape most firmly tied to the place. La Chapelle provides the line of reference; Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc widen the register; Gamaret 2018 gives the estate a dated red marker. No cellar recipe is published for these wines, so the craft here has to be read through the portfolio and the discipline that holds it together, rather than through a list of vessels, yeasts, or élevage timings.

That restraint suits the scale of the domaine. The house works sustainably and remains small, with a cellar-door model that keeps Maigre close to the people who taste the wines. In Bernex, Chasselas carries a particular local weight, a white grape that can seem simple until the bench work exposes every decision. Pick too late and the line softens. Push too hard in the cellar and the place disappears. La Chapelle’s task is narrower and harder: to keep the wine dry, direct, and legible as Geneva, while still belonging unmistakably to Domaine des Bonnettes.

The cellar in Lully

The cellar at Route de Soral in Lully has the quiet of a working place that receives guests without turning itself into a stage. The village setting matters. Bernex sits within Geneva’s wine country, close enough to the city to be reached easily, yet the rhythm at the domaine stays rural: the tasting is standing, the conversation direct, the bottles near the hands that made them. There is no sense of a large hospitality machine around the work.

In that room, the scale is part of the encounter. Small production changes how a cellar feels; it reduces distance between vine, bottle, and visitor. Maigre’s range does not need a long explanation to make its structure clear. La Chapelle carries Chasselas, Sauvignon Blanc keeps another white line open, and Gamaret 2018 remains the dated point of color in the frame. The last word belongs to La Chapelle.