Staying the course over the past four decades while many of their contemporaries modified their approach to please international critics, Dard & Ribo have cemented their reputation for making pristine natural wines.
René-Jean Dard and François Ribo met in their late teens while studying winemaking in Beaune. After Dard inherited his father’s 1ha of Saint-Joseph vines in 1975, the duo purchased further small parcels in Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage and began making wines together from the 1984 vintage onwards. Today they tend just 8.5ha of vines using meticulous organic farming techniques and without herbicides.
From their cellar in the hamlet of Blanche-Laine, Dard & Ribo craft elegant and perfumed Syrahs, which deliver that rare combination of immediacy and beautiful ageing potential, as well as vivid, mineral-edged whites from Marsanne and Roussanne. Vinified with whole clusters in large wooden casks before ageing in demi-muids, they are bottled with minimal sulphur and without fining or filtration.
Hugely popular on the Paris natural wine scene since the mid-1980s, Dard & Ribo’s bottles are now strictly allocated to restaurants and the domaine’s handful of loyal private customers, making them almost impossible to buy retail.
