Domaine de Fa
Buy wines of Domaine de Fa
Domaine de Fa is one of those wineries that show in a remarkable way how lively and versatile Beaujolais has become. Behind the project are Maxime and Antoine Graillot, the sons of Alain Graillot from Crozes-Hermitage, who died in 2022.
With experience from the northern Rhône valley and a flair for clear, clean vinification, they have created their own chapter in the far north of Beaujolais, around Saint-Amour and Fleurie. The vineyards are located on granite and slate soils, which make the Gamay here appear particularly fine, cool and structured. It is a terroir that favours tension rather than richness and gives the wines of Domaine de Fa an almost Burgundian precision.
The style of the estate is deliberately unpretentious but highly precise. The cultivation is biodynamic, the grapes are harvested by hand, fermentation takes place largely as whole-cluster fermentation, and ageing remains restrained, mostly in cement or in used barrels. As a result, the wines appear light-footed and concentrated at the same time, characterised by bright fruit, fine tannins and a salty minerality resulting from the granite sites. They possess the inner tension of the northern crus, without their austerity, and combine flavour and texture in a way that gives the wines calm and depth. Domaine de Fa thus stands for a new, very independent voice in Beaujolais: wines that are not defined by expressive flavours, but by structure and origin, and that gain complexity with a few years of ageing without losing their lightness. It is a modern understanding of Beaujolais that is closely orientated to the work of the Graillot family - precise, straightforward, serious, but never heavy - and that shows how clear and full of character Gamay can be in the right hands.
© Images: Domaine de Fa
