Philosophy

« Ils vous disent de mettre du soufre. On en mettrait ben autant comme autant. Il en faudrait pus que le bon Dieu pourrait en bénir. Et pis des ingrédients, des saletés, de la chimie, des poisons. »

C. Péguy

The arsenal of chemical products recommended and often used in the "conventional" winemaking process is literally astonishing, confining the wine to predefined and marketable tastes. After so many treatments, the wine is left broken and subdued. At the Passeur, we prefer working with winemakers who work in conscience and with care, limiting the treatments and alteration of their grapes and wine.

We can therefore do without industrial yeasts, for example, which autocratically regulate the wine-making process and give the wines artificial aromas such as that unbearable scent of chemical bananas which can be found in cheap Beaujolais. In soils where flora and fauna have not completely disappeared, indigenous yeasts are sufficient and offer complex, rich and varied aromatic spectrums.

And then there is the sulfur. Yes, it is present in all wines and it forms naturally during the alcoholic fermentation. However, the use of SO2 as practiced by conventional wine must be forgotten for multiple reasons, first among which, for the health of the consumer: sulfur is in no way harmless to the human body. Secondly, for the taste of the wine, which sulfur denatures. Wines with little or no added sulfur require flawless winemaking conditions, a lot of work in the cellar, perfect hygiene and optimal storage and conservation conditions. But the results speak for themselves.

Yeasts and SO2 should not be the vine hiding the grapes of the other additives and auxiliaries authorized by certain approvals, but totally excluded by the Passeur: fermentation regulator, enzymes (GMO or not), sugar enrichment, dealcoholization, acidification, deacidification, filtrations, correctors of colors and aromas ... More than 300 different additives are used in "conventional" winemaking!