Domaine des Deux Clés

One light pump over in Fontjoncouse

The reds get one light pump over a day. Florian Richter, winemaker at Domaine des Deux Clés in Fontjoncouse, keeps the cellar work close to that measure, choosing restraint where the southern sun might invite force. He has held the role since 2015, after training at Dijon and Geisenheim University and working across Burgundy, Germany, Napa Valley, Tuscany, Châteauneuf du Pape, New Zealand, and Languedoc. The path was broad, but the station is now specific: a small biodynamic domaine in the Hautes-Corbières, set in a rocky village where high sites and narrow rows decide much of the method before fruit reaches the cellar.

Richter first worked at Maison Champy in Burgundy from 2009, then moved through cellars and regions whose demands did not resemble one another. Lokoya and Hall Wines in Napa Valley, Alberto Antonini in Tuscany, Château Beaucastel and Domaine du Pégau in Châteauneuf du Pape, Te Awa in New Zealand, and a Languedoc cooperative all sit behind the choices he makes here. At Domaine des Deux Clés, that training is not displayed as biography. It appears in the discipline of extraction, in the preference for freshness, and in the patience required by old vines at altitude.

Old vines, narrow rows, low pressure

The estate works about 13 to 14 hectares near Fontjoncouse, with vineyards at 250 to 350 m and a production of roughly 60,000 bottles per year. The farming is biodynamic, with Demeter certification attached to the estate’s practice, and the work remains unusually physical because older plantings and narrow rows make tractor use impossible. Carignan, Grenache Noir, and Syrah carry the red program; Macabeu, Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Vermentino, and Roussanne carry the white side. The vines average 60 years, and some pass 100 years. Yields are held to 10 hl/ha.

In the cellar, whites go through low-pressure pneumatic pressing, then fermentation and maturation in 228L French oak barrels that are 5 to 7 years old. Indigenous yeasts start the fermentations, and fine lees are stirred near the end of alcoholic fermentation. Reds ferment as a mix of whole clusters and whole berries in large concrete and stainless-steel tanks. Richter adds only a minimal amount of sulfur after malolactic fermentation, and the wines are bottled without fining or filtration. The method asks for accuracy rather than intervention. The fruit has already done much of the arguing in the vines.

A cellar below the garrigue

The place feels governed by distance. Fontjoncouse sits in the Hautes-Corbières, about 25 km from the Mediterranean Sea, reached by narrow roads through rocky valleys and garrigue. The vineyards occupy several exposures, including north-northeast slopes, in a microclimate described as 2 to 4°C cooler than much of the surrounding region. That difference matters at the bench-side level of wine: acidity held, ripeness slowed, tannin kept from hardening into weight.

Hospitality is not the estate’s center of gravity. The atmosphere belongs more to the vineyard and the cellar than to a polished tasting room, with the quiet of a working rural domaine around the barrels, tanks, and tools. Sandy white clay and limestone sit beneath the rows, and the village scale keeps the estate close to its parcels. You sense the work as a daily circuit: vines, cellar, vessels, back again.

The next bottle stays close to the rows

The portfolio follows the same line of thought, from Corbières Rouge Réserve Vallée du Paradis to VDF D’Ici & d’Ailleurs Blanc and Clés en Main. A 2024 Clés en Main Blanc was made from purchased fruit from three organic growers near Sigean, fermented in 5 to 7-year-old 228L French oak with indigenous yeasts and minimal sulfur. When the estate points forward, it does so through parcels and blends rather than announcement. The most concrete future here is still the next vintage of Clés en Main Blanc.