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 works in Auvergne, a region most French natural-wine drinkers had to be reminded existed. He studied organic chemistry in Clermont-Ferrand, spent years as an engineer, and switched paths after discovering 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, 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, P (Pinot Noir), Cailloux, Lulu (Gamay d'Auvergne in amphora), Festejar (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 Samos project built around Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains and other local varieties. He also collaborated with rapper Action Bronson on the A La Natural cuvées (2016-2017).
Alongside a small cohort of natural-wine vignerons working in the Marcel Lapierre lineage, Patrick helped put Auvergne back on the natural-wine map.
