Domaine des Muttes

Cooling the must before the bottle

The must is cooled before its work is finished. Stéphane Pascal; Claire Pelissier, winemaker at Domaine des Muttes in Aurel, hold the estate’s Clairette de Die AOC to that older rhythm, farming and vinifying from their own organic vineyard in the village. The place is not built around a large cellar mythology. Its authority is narrower and more useful: a family-run domaine on the slopes of Aurel, in the Drôme, making its AOC cuvées on site from land it works itself.

Their role here is stated through production rather than through a public roll call of teachers. Pascal and Pelissier are the named hands behind the domaine’s Clairette de Die AOC and Crémant de Die AOC in Agriculture Biologique, with Coteaux de Die also held inside the same estate logic. The vineyard spans 17 hectares, all set within the Clairette de Die appellation, and the work begins there before it reaches the cellar. Organic farming is not a label applied at the end. It shapes the vineyard calendar, the grape selection, and the decision to keep the cuvées made at the domaine rather than separated from the ground that produced them.

AOC cuvées kept inside the domaine

The program is focused: Clairette de Die AOC BIO, Crémant de Die AOC BIO, and Coteaux de Die AOC BIO. For Clairette de Die, the method follows the dioise ancestrale tradition. Fermentation begins, then the cellar arrests it by cooling the must below 10°C. The partially fermented wine goes to bottle with its own remaining sugars, then completes fermentation there for a minimum of four months. The bubbles come from that continuation, not from a separate vocabulary of addition and correction.

Muscat à petits grains carries the aromatic charge of the Clairette de Die Tradition, with Clairette B in support. The appellation requires at least 75% Muscat for that style, and the wine keeps at least 35 g/L residual sugar under the méthode ancestrale designation. Crémant de Die takes another route, using méthode traditionnelle and a secondary fermentation in bottle after liqueur de tirage. Coteaux de Die stays still, a white wine drawn from the same regional grammar without effervescence. The estate also makes organic grape juice, which keeps the fruit visible without the cellar’s second act.

The cellar beside the vineyard

The room at Domaine des Muttes is simple, rural, and close to the vines. The tasting room does not need polish to explain the work; the surrounding slopes already give the conversation its scale. Aurel sits between Crest and Die, with the Vercors in the wider weather of the place, and the vineyard carries the cooler nights and slower ripening associated with the Diois. That matters for Muscat, a grape whose perfume can turn heavy if the hand in the vineyard loses patience.

Visitors encounter the domaine through the cellar and vineyard rather than through a staged distance. The explanations stay bench-side: vine cycle, cellar choices, bottle fermentation, the difference between Clairette de Die and Crémant de Die. The atmosphere is quiet enough for those distinctions to hold. On July 14, the domaine opens the work outward with vineyard walks and tastings, a local ritual rather than a performance. La Colombe Clairette de Die Tradition 2024 remains in the glass.