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Across the Rhône and a bit further north you'll find the Domaine de Trapadis on the outskirts of the village of Rasteau. There, the young Hélen Durand and his mother Michelle are business associates making some of the most delicious red wines in the region. He is known as a bit over-the-top, a little bit crazy, in his devotion to wine, wine-making, his vines, his lands... he lives and breathes grapes and wine. He started making wine on his family's lands when he was 16). During his younger years, his mother had done what many do, she sold the harvest each year to a larger winemaker who used her grapes to make his wines. But, Hélen, while attending the agricultural high-school with a focus on wine-making, decided to take back the family lands and experiment on them, making their own wine and developing their own name. When he took back over the family lands, they were as many in the region were, exhausted by the overuse of pesticides and herbicides, and giving a relatively ok, if not exceptional yield. He opted to go organic, bit by bit, turning over the weeds and letting them mulch to feed his land rather than killing them with herbicides. He visits his vines daily, and immediately is aware of any invasion of pests or illness or mold or any other element attacking his vines. He, and the other organic wine-makers in the region, use the topical application of copper and sulfur to combat mold and certain diseases, treatments allowed under the organic labelling in France (known as BIO).

Hélen has noticed that in not using extra chemistry in the growth of his vines, he is able to make use of the yeast naturally present on his grapes to start fermentation, and does not add any to his vats. In this way he is able to make a wine that expresses the "terroir". A wine of his land, of his air, of his region. He grows the traditional Grenache and Carignan of the region, as well as Syrah and Mourvedre grapes. He does not age his wines in oak barrels, neither new nor old, but vinifies in cement tanks . However, to gain a certain element of wood tannin, he leaves the grape stems in as he ferments, rather than removing them as many do, including both Cabanis and Wimmer below. He makes a gamut of 4 red wines and one VDN red dessert wine. Each is wonderful, from the simple red-currant spiciness of his basic AOC Côte du Rhône, to his top of the line Les Adrés, deep, dark, rich and complex. His red dessert wine has notes of blackberry and black current and is fantastic when paired with a dark chocolate mousse.

Back down in our neighborhood, is the Domaine d'Eole, run by Mathias Wimmer, who, as his name would indicate, is originally from Germany. He has been at the winery these past 10 years and is making what we firmly believe is the best wine in the Baux de Provence region, (under the AOC Côteaux d'Aix and Les Baux de Provence). His winery is located on the outskirts of Eygalières, a small village in the Alpilles, right on the sides of the Alpilles hills. The lands are dusty, rocky and dry, ideal for growing the Syrah grape. The winery also grows Grenache (a staple of the region) and dark fruity Carignan, the rare Counoise, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Mathias works organically and lives right in the midst of his lands, ideal for visiting them daily and keeping good tabs on the health of his vines and the ripeness of each parcel.

One of the methods of controlling the quality of his wine is to do what is known in local terms as a "vendange vert" in the month of July. The aim is to control the production of his land, drastically limiting the quantity of liquid that he produces per acre or as they use here, per hectare. In the month of July, Mathias and Hélen go amongst their vines and cut off many many bunches of grapes, still small and green. For their top wines, they reduce the production of each vine to only 3 grape bunches per individual plant.