Domaine Les Dryades

Nature given the first move

André Bélard lets the vineyard set the first instruction. As winemaker at Domaine Les Dryades in Lavaux, with the cellar in Rivaz, he works from that premise before the fruit reaches the press. He founded the estate in 2023 as vigneron, oenologist, and celler-master, holding the vineyard, cellar, and final blend under one hand. His own sentence is plain: “In my vineyard, nature should take the wheel.” At André Bélard’s bench, that is less a phrase than a constraint on the method. The estate is young, but Bélard is not new to the tools; he brings over 15 years in Swiss vineyards to a place built without inherited cellar mythology. Domaine Les Dryades sits in Lavaux AOC, working parcels in Saint-Saphorin and Dézaley, and its scale keeps the decisions close. The property measures about 2.3 hectares, with vines sharing ground with fruit, herbs, and vegetables. The result is a winery that reads as a working farm first, then as a label. Bélard’s stated credo, “biodiversity, fertility, resilience,” gives the order of work: living soil, patient growth, wine made after the vineyard has had its say.

Two crus, one small farm

The program at Domaine Les Dryades begins on the terraces above Lake Geneva, where Saint-Saphorin and Dézaley give Bélard steep slopes, limestone and marl, pockets of glacial gravel and clay, and the lake’s moderating air. He farms according to bio and agroecological principles, without synthetic pesticides or herbicides, using organic compost, cover crops, and mixed planting to keep the parcel from behaving like a monoculture. Grapes are only part of the farm’s language. Fruits, herbs, and vegetables sit inside the same 2.3 hectares, turning the vineyard into a more complex piece of ground than a single crop would allow. In the cellar, the estate’s range moves through still white, still red, and orange wine. Orange Pinot Gris from the 2023 vintage points to skin contact as part of the method, drawing texture and phenolic grip from a white grape rather than polishing it away. Other named wines, including Gamay - Vin Nature 2025, 2024 Domaine Les Dryades André Bélard Viognier, Domaine Les Dryades Andre Bélard Assemblage, and Untitled No. 02, show a portfolio still being formed in public, one cuvée at a time.

Rivaz at cellar pace

The room around the work is quiet because the estate asks for quiet. Rivaz is a small village in the terraced Lavaux landscape, and Domaine Les Dryades keeps its scale visible: family-run, nature-focused, and close to the vines it presses. The tasting room and vineyard walks belong to the same rhythm as the cellar, not a separate performance layered over it. From the parcels, Lake Geneva sits below the stone lines of the slope; inside, the work returns to vessels, fruit, and timing. There is no grand inherited façade to manage here. The house is recent, and that gives the place a certain directness. Bélard has to make the lineage by farming it.

A young estate with named bottles

The next measure of Domaine Les Dryades will come through the wines as the young farm settles into its own cadence. For now, the clearest thread is the same one Bélard began with in 2023: a small Lavaux parcel, agroecological discipline, and cuvées that keep their names close to the hand that made them, from Orange Pinot Gris 2023 to Untitled No. 02.