A chemist who left the lab to make zero-sulphur wines on the volcanic slopes of Auvergne - Domaine de la Bohème, Gamay d'Auvergne, and a generation's worth of side projects.
Patrick Bouju is a legend of the French natural-wine scene from a region most French natural-wine drinkers had to be reminded existed. He studied organic chemistry in Clermont-Ferrand, worked for years as an engineer, and discovered that he was intolerant to sulfites - which is not the worst possible reason to reconsider your career. First commercial vintage was 2002. He founded Domaine de la Bohème in 2004. He quit his engineering job in 2008 to make wine full time.
Domaine de la Bohème is in Saint-Georges-sur-Allier, a small village on the hillsides south-east of Clermont-Ferrand in the Puy-de-Dôme, Auvergne - the volcanic centre of France, a region that had almost stopped making wine in the wake of phylloxera and rural decline. The vineyards sit on volcanic basalt slopes of the Chaîne des Puys, at around five hundred metres of elevation. Some of Patrick's plots hold pre-phylloxera vines up to a hundred and twenty years old. The estate has grown to around nine hectares today, planted mostly to Gamay d'Auvergne, with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
Ivan Omelchenko with Patrick Bouju (wearing Vova Ulianov's hat). Photo by Anna Zinchuk.
His partner Justine Loiseau co-makes the wines and is credited alongside him on many of the labels. The philosophy is strict natural wine: certified organic, native yeasts, zero added sulphur, whole-cluster and semi-carbonic maceration for reds, little to no oak fining or filtration. Alongside the domaine wines they run a négociant arm, buying fruit from trusted growers - the playful cuvées (G&M, Mol, Lulu, Super B) often come from that side of the project, which gives Patrick a way to experiment with varieties like Mondeuse and Altesse that he does not himself farm.
Key cuvées include La Bohème, Dame Jeanne, Mon Pote le Gamay, Gris Gris, Les Orgues (pét-nat), and a rotating cast of négociant bottlings. Collaborations have taken him well beyond Auvergne: in 2018 he teamed up with Jason Ligas on Sous Le Vegetal, a project on Samos aimed at reviving forgotten Greek varieties. He has also collaborated with rapper Action Bronson, which is the kind of thing that can only happen if you are Patrick Bouju.
Along with a small cohort - Philippe Tessier, Axel Prüfer, in the Marcel Lapierre lineage - Patrick is the figure who made Auvergne legible again as a serious French wine region.
